


The Road Home

by A_Stressed_Cupcake



Series: The Road Home- Canon divergence [2]
Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Awkwardness, Background Relationships, Cass gets redeemed, Family Feels, Gen, I can't believe me and firefly made the brotherhood a tag, Mending Relationships, Moon Powers Varian (Disney), Nightmares, Not Canon Compliant, POV Multiple, Rated For Violence, Someone Help Them, Tags May Change, The Author Regrets Nothing, You're Welcome, mostly off-screen but be safe, the Brotherhood share one braincell
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:27:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 35
Words: 42,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23228614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Stressed_Cupcake/pseuds/A_Stressed_Cupcake
Summary: Warning- This work references other works in the series.Varian disappeared for the second time in two days, this time without a lead.There are several people looking for him, but they may have signed up for something a lot bigger than a simple search and rescue. Something ancient.
Relationships: Adira & Hector & Quirin (Disney: Tangled), Cassandra & Rapunzel (Disney: Tangled), Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider/Rapunzel, Quirin & Varian (Disney)
Series: The Road Home- Canon divergence [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1670134
Comments: 558
Kudos: 249





	1. Lost and Found

**Author's Note:**

> This starts pretty much exactly where Last Attempt left off.

The floor was not a good place to fall asleep. His head was pounding, his back was sore and he had an  _ awful _ crick in the neck. 

If only that were the worst part of his situation.

If only.

But no, he remembered as soon as his brain stopped hammering against his skull, that wasn't the worst part. 

The worst part was that his potentially possessed son (if it even  _ was _ his son) had pushed him down the stairs and was nowhere in sight. Which was worrying for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being that he was apparently going to have to look for his son for the second time in two days, only without a lead this time.

It was as he remembered that less than ideal situation that he jolted to sit up. Something tugged at his hair. Caked blood. It stuck to the back of his head like a parasite.

He stumbled to his feet, leaning against the wall for support.

He knew what was happening.

He knew it would do no good.

Still, he called out.

" _ Varian _ ?"

No answer. Of course.

Quirin looked for him. Upstairs, downstairs, outside and inside the house, but there was no trace of him.

It took him longer than it should have to take action. He couldn't say how long he'd been sitting alone on the bench outside, but it was too long.

Why wasn't he doing anything? He should go look.

But where? He had no idea which way to go.

To find help? He didn't know who  _ could _ help.

Those were the questions that kept him petrified on the bench, staring blankly at the town in front of him. 

He didn't know what to do.

His lungs were burning. Why were they burning? 

He felt like there was a boulder strapped to his back and nails keeping him fixed to the bench and an awl going through the back of his head where it had hit the floor. The nails in his legs may have been imaginary, but they might as well not be for how much it hurt to finally rip himself away from that spot. 

His brain finally put forth a coherent thought.

_ Any direction is a direction _ , he decided, and his legs were moving before he could realize it. 

Through the hole in the city walls, maybe? If he-  _ it _ didn't want to be noticed, surely it wouldn't have chosen to leave through the village, right?

The people of Old Corona did not seem bothered at all that morning. If they had seen Varian pass through, acting strange and covered in blood, surely they would have acted upon it, right?

Right?

He went back inside and retrieved his sword, quietly, from the chest that held his armour.

He stepped hesitantly over the black rocks. They were everywhere.  _ They  _ had started more messes than he could ever hope to solve in the past few years. They had sprung from the ground like the clawed hands of an angry underworld deity, pierced through homes and roads and, most recently, his  _ son's lung _ (he had to avoid thinking about it before the five stages of grief could smack him across the head even when there should have been no grief to speak of).

The forest was quiet. Too quiet.

No chirping and scurrying around by any of the critters that logically should have been there. No snakes and mice and owls, no little squirrels skipping along the top of the branches.

He found that the path where the animals had been terrified into vacating their habitat must have been the right way to go.

The sun was in its zenith, right above his head.

A twig snapped, but not under his foot.

Somewhere in the forest, a young woman sat on a pedestal of black rock.

She held her head in her hands in confusion and resignation.

Cassandra had left the valley just as soon as help had arrived for Varian but, as she soon realized upon finally stopping to rest, the ghost girl hadn't followed her. She was nowhere to be found. Cassandra had tried calling out to her, scoured the forest as far as she could afford to go without risking to encounter someone else, spoken to the air, but nothing.

The girl had simply vanished, or so it would seem.

It was no great loss (she had a questionable sense of morality and didn't even have a name), but still.

For the first time in months, Cassandra was beginning to realize that she really didn't know what to do. She didn't have any plans, or enough information to act on her own. 

And, to be perfectly honest, she would have liked to have someone to talk to.

Yes, the girl was awful. She was starting to realize that part, too. No sane person could look at an innocent boy in agony and suggest simply walking away when there were other options.

But that was something she would have liked to discuss with the girl. Before, she had been too busy trying to stop Varian from bleeding out to give her a piece of her mind, but oh… she would've loved to. 

"What kind of person leaves a kid to die?" she murmured. Her blood began to rush in anger, only to immediately freeze when she heard a rustling in the woods.

"Good question." said an unmistakable voice from within the forest: "I'm sure you'd like an answer."

Cassandra stood up so abruptly that she could feel her hair bounce up from the momentum.

"Varian!?" she exclaimed, staring with wide eyes at the boy. She noticed right away that something was off about him. The voice was definitely his, but that accent did  _ not _ sound like him at all. The half smile on his face was weird, too. 

"Not quite." he (she? They?  _ It _ ?) answered. His eyes gleamed a strange shade of bluish green, not his usual dark teal but rather a cerulean and phosphorescent glow. It was spectral and somewhat ethereal. He walked up to her with an alarming calm for someone who'd had a near death experience at her hands not five hours prior. 

She couldn't help but take a tiny step back.

She didn't trust herself to use the rocks yet. Not again.

"Wha… what are you talking about?" she stuttered. Why was she stuttering? It was just Varian. Small, scared, innocent Varian. Well, most of the time.

That smile wasn't something she'd ever seen on him, though. Not even in his darkest hour.

"He's not here, at present." he… or, well, whatever it was sighed, brushing the dust off Varian's apron, "I'm afraid I have to keep him unconscious, for the time being."

She didn't answer.

The thing smiled at her: "Well,  _ Cassandra _ ?"

It was at the sound of her name that it finally clicked. 

"It's you!" she exclaimed, taking another step back before she could stop herself.

"I heard you were calling for me?" the ghost smiled. The posture, the smile, the accent, everything was completely  _ wrong _ .

"W…" Cassandra felt herself begin to panic: "What are you doing? Why are you-"

"Possessing him?" he…  _ it _ giggled, "Well, you see, after the whole… stabbing incident…" 

It gestured up and down the body that did not belong to it: "...there has been a change of plans, I'm afraid."

Walking up to her with a feigned calm that concealed its greed, the creature held out Varian's hand: "I'm going to need the Moonstone."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for clicking, friends :D  
> Welcome to something I mostly wrote at night (for the moon powers, you know how it is) that will inevitably become angsty at some point. I'd say we're off to a great start.
> 
> Yay, I'm finally posting this :D  
> This story will follow multiple characters around, as we can see in this first chapter. Yes, I'm aware I'm whumping Varian (and his poor dad) too much, give me a break. I don't usually allow f-bombs in my stories but if I did there would be one in this chapter  
> Yes, it may have opened up a spring of inspiration when it was confirmed that anyone could wield the Sundrop and/or Moonstone. Leave me alone :,)
> 
> After a long debate with myself, I have decided to update regularly twice a week on Tuesday and Friday, to distance it from my other multichapter fic and space out the chapters a bit.
> 
> Leave me a comment and let me know what you think :D
> 
> -Cass


	2. Auld Acquaintance

Quirin's reflexes may not have been the best among the other knights'. He may have been rusty from years and years of farming and avoiding fighting at all costs.

Still, he _was_ a trained knight and his reflexes were better than most people's.

So, when he turned towards the source of the sound and saw nothing, he knew from the start that it was someone who knew how to evade detection. Someone trained.

He was right.

"I'm glad to see you're doing better." a voice called out from behind him. He turned around. He didn't really need to, for how familiar the voice was, but it was basic etiquette to face the person one was talking to.

"Adira." he greeted.

"Hello."

"What are you doing here? It's been-"

"It's been some time, yes. Would you believe me if I said it's a coincidence?" she asked.

"Not for a second." he sighed. Anyone who needed to ask him a question like that was clearly not expecting him to believe them. And oh boy, did he know about that.

"That's what I thought." Adira shrugged, "Actually, I was doing my rounds and I noticed someone. And then I thought _I should follow him_ and so I did. Then I decided it wasn't my business and that, if you were in the condition to attend to it, it would be yours. And here I am."

"That's very considerate."

"Thank you."

Quirin couldn't help the knot in his stomach, but he could certainly ignore it: "I have to assume you're talking about-"

"Black hair with a blue stripe, goggles, apron. A lot of blood."

"...my son, yes." 

She gave him a sideways glance as they started walking to where she led: "It almost sounds like you hear this often."

"Not in those terms, but yes." he admitted, "He has… a tendency to get in trouble. But he's not a bad child, at all."

"Well, you've had excellent practice." she commented, casually jumping a rock with the grace of a squirrel. It took Quirin a little longer. 

Adira seemed to be at ease in the forest. She walked fast, over obstacle after obstacle, yet she kept her hands behind her back and a relaxed half smile on her face.

"Do you know what he's gotten himself into?" she asked him, suddenly. He wasn't sure how to answer. How much could he tell her? As terrifying as the thought was, there was no real guarantee that Varian would come out of that situation unscathed. There was no guarantee that there would be a way to free him of whatever spell he was under. And where would Adira stand on that? How understanding was she willing to be for a kid she didn't know, possessed by the ancient demon they'd been taught to fear?

He looked at the woman he called _sister_ and found no ill intent in her eyes.

So he told her the truth.

"I'm afraid he's been possessed. His eyes, they…"

He felt his breath catch in his throat. It finally hit him. Yes, his son was possessed; yes, he'd pushed him down the stairs and yes, he had no idea where to find him or how to get him back. 

"Oh." he breathed out, feeling his head swim. He stumbled on air.

"Do you need to sit down?" Adira inquired, her brow raised in moderate concern.

"No, no…" he lied.

"Sit down." she ordered. And he knew very well that it was useless to argue with her and that, if he didn't sit down, she would _make_ him sit down. And also, he was probably going to fall down anyway, judging by the familiar tingling in his calves. So he let himself fall against a tree. 

She seemed to notice the complete despair in his posture. She sat on a tree stump across from him.

“We have a lot to catch up on.” Adira observed. She was right. Sixteen years were a lot. 

“What have you been up to?" he asked her: "Have you just…”

“Been in the forest this entire time? More or less. It’s more comfortable than you’d think.”

“I’m sure you’re right.” he mumbled, running his hand through his hair. The back of his head was pulsing with swollen blood vessels and stretched skin in the form of a noticeable bump above his nape. 

She stared him straight in the eyes.

"Quirin, don't panic now, but I think you have a concussion."

"What?" he mumbled, "No, no. It's just…" 

He gestured vaguely with his hand: "Just… the thing. That…"

"No, this is not one of your usual attacks." she shook her head, "You're breathing fine, but you're really dizzy and confused. And there's blood on your head."

"Varian pushed me down the stairs."

He didn't realize immediately how matter-of-fact his answer was. Adira had a reaction, that was for sure, but as for whether her face expressed concern, anger, confusion or amusement, or a mix of all four, he couldn't tell. 

"He… pushed you down the stairs."

"Yes."

"And then?"

"I don't know. I woke up… some time later."

"Quirin. I don't know how to break it to you, but that is definitely a concussion and you _really_ shouldn't be walking around right now." she pointed out. And she was right. But he really couldn't afford to rest at that exact moment.

"It doesn't matter." he panted, struggling to help himself up, "I can go on."

"Just because you _can_ doesn't mean you _should_ , remember? That's what you said all the time." she smirked.

"Well, I can and I will. Lead the way."

"Alright, but if you fall over, you're not getting up again until a doctor signs a permit for you." she shrugged, already walking away.

Cassandra couldn't step any further back, and she didn't like it. 

"What?" she hissed, searching for an escape route that didn't involve pushing an already injured kid to the ground.

"You heard me." the ghost said, calmly, "Give me the Moonstone."

"No!!" she protested. She tried to subtly move to the right to just run around Varian, but he stepped to the right as well. There was no good point to prop herself on to jump over him, and she did not want to touch him for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being that if he got close enough to touch her he would be able to steal the Moonstone away from her. And she was not going to let that happen. Not after everything she'd gone through to get it, not after everything she'd done to keep it, not after everything else had been taken from her.

The tips of her fingers began to glow blue.

"Stay away from me." she commanded.

A spike shot out of the ground, too far away from Varian to ever risk touching him. He didn't even flinch. That wasn't Varian.

"Or what?" he asked, batting his eyes innocently: "You'll stab him again? That trick you pulled with the Sundrop won't work a second time, you know?"

"I'll hurt him if I have to." she lied, hoping to get her ghostly acquaintance to back off.

"Go ahead." he challenged, with a smile that was too wide to be natural. He took another step forward: "I can always just leave. And then you can explain to him why you were trying to stab him a second time after telling him you didn't mean to the first time. Assuming, of course, that you don’t kill him by mistake before then."

Another spike shot out, still too far from him to hurt him. Another, and another, and another, and none of them got close enough to ever pose a threat. Cassandra was trapped. 

"Come on!!" the thing possessing Varian challenged, opening his arms wide: "I know you can do better than that."

He stepped forward again.

Cassandra set aside the panic that was building up inside her. 

_Think._

_Concentrate._

She reached for the rocks. They answered, awoken from their slumber, ready to attack. But no, attack wasn't what she was going for.

She just needed to trap him. Keep him in one place until she could solve the possession problem. Just trap him, not attack.

She poured all her fading concentration into those thoughts.

_Now._

She dropped to her knees and, as soon as her fingertips brushed against the grass, a dozen black spikes emerged from the earth with a loud _crack!_

In a split second, they'd closed around Varian, allowing him no space to move, but without leaving a single scratch on him.

"Yes!" Cassandra cheered, standing triumphant in front of the caged ghost.

Or so she thought.

Just as she was beginning to congratulate herself for her new control over the rocks, a startled yelp made her head snap back towards the impromptu cage beside her.

The phosphorescent glow of the moon in the sea had faded from Varian's eyes. And he was _not_ taking the situation well. He looked like himself again, and the eyes that stared back at her were no longer cold and unnatural. They were _terrified_.

He struggled against the spikes' bruising grip with the terror of a mouse in a trap, pushing and scratching in a panic, while his eyes darted back and forth, up and down, wide with confusion and fear. 

It only got worse when he saw her.

"Wh- how did I get here?" he stuttered: "Let me go!!"

_Oh no_.

She stepped towards him with her arms raised in an appeasing gesture: "It's okay, it's just fo-"

"Please- please, let me go. I thought-" 

He was starting to panic. The bruising grip of the rocks against his ribs certainly wasn't helping, but if she only removed those he was at risk of reaching the point of another spike with his flailing hands, and if she removed all the spikes at once he might get hurt, or run off without knowing what was happening. She had to ease the tension.

"Varian, calm down!" she hushed, putting her arms forward in a soothing manner. He did not calm down.

_Great_.

"Just let me explain myself!!" she cried, still keeping a cautious distance, "Listen to me. Listen, okay?"

He stopped struggling for a moment, but his eyes were still wide with panic.

"Varian, I can't let you out of there until I know you are yourself."

That didn't help. In fact, it seemed to further exasperate the poor boy: "What does that mean??" he cried, letting his head fall on his shoulder.

Cassandra was taken aback. Was he not aware of the possession? How could he possibly have missed that? How long had he been possessed? 

Was she even talking to the real Varian? He looked normal enough at that moment, normal and utterly terrified as he would have been in any such situation. His eyes looked like his eyes, finally. 

"Varian…" she started, cautiously: "This is going to sound weird."

"Oh, try me!" he mumbled, "I was bleeding out in a valley and now we're apparently on the other side of the forest and I am healed, but also trapped. Also it's daytime now. Whatever it is, this entire night has been beyond weird."

Well, he seemed to be doing better.

So she decided to just break it to him.

"You're possessed."

Whatever he'd been expecting, that clearly wasn't it. His face made a strange turn, from tired to confused to terrified again: "What?" he breathed. 

"You're possessed." she repeated, "By a ghost. And I can't let you out until it's safe."

"How did that happen?"

"I don't know."

"How do you know I was…"

"You walked up to me, covered in blood, and pretty much told me." she sighed.

"Oh."

He looked down at his feet, suspended a few inches off the ground.

"I understand." he murmured, "But… my ribs really hurt. Could you please-" 

He choked on a rattling cough that was starting to bubble up in his throat. The sudden jolts in his ribs were doing him no favours whatsoever: his sides slammed against the impromptu bars of his cage, again and again, and each cough looked more painful than the last. 

Cassandra's mind went blank. 

With a shaking hand, she called for the rocks to retreat back into the earth. Varian dropped to his knees with a wheeze and he didn't get up. He looked like he was going to pass out at any moment.

Before she could realize it, she was at his side, helping him sit up.

"I wanna go home…" he whispered, rubbing one hand against his aching ribs in an unsuccessful massage.

Cassandra's gaze softened. "You _did_ go home. Remember? Rapunzel and your dad brought you back."

He went quiet for a moment.

"Yeah…" he sighed.

Then his lips twisted up in a smile that wasn't his.

" _You should've seen the old man's face when I pushed him down the stairs_ ." he laughed. He _laughed_.

Cassandra flinched, but not even her fighter's instinct could warn her when Varian ripped the stone out of her chest.

As she felt its energy drain away from her exhausted body, she looked into his eyes.

They were glowing brighter than before.

They were walking for quite some time.

"You said you saw him passing by here?" Quirin asked.

"Yes, all the way over there." Adira nodded, pointing at the stream on their left, "On the other side of the stream."

"And how was he?"

"Better than I expected, for how much blood was on him." she admitted, "What's the deal with that?"

And so he recounted the whole story, sparing, on her request, none of the gruesome details. It was more upsetting than he remembered now that he was actually talking about it. The sheer panic that had washed over him upon first seeing his son like that was beginning to twist in his gut once again, dulled, but never gone, like a parasite gnawing at his insides. Persistent and painful. 

Adira just nodded at crucial points, asked for further details occasionally, but never commented on anything. Once the story was over, though, she spoke up: “It’s okay. We’ll find him.”

That’s when he knew.

She could be trusted.

The clearing in front of them would have been almost idyllic if not for the veritable forest of black rocks that invaded it. As it was, there was no way to pass through without cutting them down. Good thing they could do that.

Adira shrugged her sword off her back: “This doesn’t look promising.”

“Cassandra.”

“Probably. We’ll have to look and see.”

With one strike, she slashed through a first cluster of rocks. The spikes slid to the floor with a flash of blue and they climbed with little effort over their stumps. Adira slashed a few more rocks to make a passage for them, but they had a long way to go. Until, somewhere on their right, they heard something. A muffled yell.

"Do you hear that?" Quirin whispered. His sister nodded.

She pointed to a particular cluster of rocks that appeared to be arranged in a conical structure, strangely tidy compared to the rest.

"Cut off the top." he suggested.

"Stay here." she ordered, already skipping across the few rocks that separated her from the cone. She raised her sword and sliced the tip of the strange structure clean off. And then she looked at him.

"You might want to see this." she said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was originally going to be a lot shorter but I fused it with the next chapter because I felt bad writing a chapter with a single scene :/  
> I really just looked at Moon!Varian and said "let me combine this with an entirely different AU". It be like that sometimes.  
> Yay Brotherhood!! Am I right, people who've read my stories for a while and know there is always at least one member of the Brotherhood in them? :D I'm not sorry
> 
> Leave a comment because why not? :3
> 
> -Cass


	3. A Quest

Jumping across a sea of spikes with a concussion was, objectively, a horrible idea. He decided to climb instead.

By the time he reached Adira, she had already sat cross legged on the edge and was well in the middle of a hushed conversation with whoever had been imprisoned in the cone. And whoever he'd been expecting, this wasn't it.

Staring up at him with confusion that turned into terror and guilt the moment she saw him, Cassandra sat at the bottom of the cage. Her eyes were back to their usual dark grey and her hair's blue glow had faded into brown. She looked smaller than he remembered.

"What happened to you?" was the first question that sprang to his mind. How had she ended up imprisoned in her own rocks like that? Where was the Moonstone? 

Cassandra backed a little more against the wall behind her: "I… it's Varian, he-"

"Was possessed, yes, we know. Where did he go, Short Hair?"

Adira was not being very tactful, but, to be fair, they couldn't be sure she didn't want their heads. Although, her attitude suggested something more than simple distrust.

"I don't know!" she scoffed, "She stole the Moonstone and locked me in here and-"

She paused: "And I don't know where she took him."

" _ She _ ?" Quirin repeated.

Cassandra looked at him with frightened eyes: "The demon."

She recounted the incident three times, each time answering more of their questions, and Quirin couldn't help but visualize everything she was saying. They had no more clues as to Varian's whereabouts by the end of it, but at least they understood who was responsible. And it made him sick.

This was the same demon they'd been told of since their earliest childhood, the same demon that Hector used to have nightmares of, the same demon that had sent that damned blizzard their way. Adira didn't  _ look _ shaken, but her silence was telling. They exchanged a glance.

_ We have to find him. _

"We have to find him." Cassandra urged, "I want to help. I-"

"We didn't say we were letting you out." Adira pointed out to her, and the girl  _ froze _ . Quirin turned to his sister in confusion. That seemed unnecessarily cruel. And extremely out of character.

"What are you saying?" he scolded, "Of course we are!"

"You are?" Cassandra blinked.

"We are. I was just messing with you." Adira shrugged.

“Adira…” he warned.

“Sorry.”

He looked back down into the cage. The girl was looking at him almost sheepishly; she hesitated when he offered his hand.

“Let me help you out of there.” he pleaded, "You've been trapped long enough."

He hoped he came across as understanding.

Cassandra finally accepted the help and, with his support, she lifted herself out of the cage. She still wouldn't look him in the eyes.

"Alright." Adira spoke up, "Time to go."

The former handmaiden seemed to light up a little: "Which way?"

"I'd say the Great T-"

"Oh no." Quirin interrupted, "No. You must go home."

"What?" the women asked, in unison but with a completely different tone; Adira's calm request for clarification made a stark contrast to Cassandra's panicked confusion.

He sighed deeply: "Your father has been desperately looking for you, Cassandra. You've worried him enough. Go home "

"But-"

"Please. Go home."

He would never know whether it was out of guilt, intimidation or genuine desire to return home that she complied, but it didn't matter to him. Likewise, he didn't know if it was out of a desire to protect, sympathy for her poor father, or just an unwillingness to be near her that he told her to leave. Either way, she left without a word.

Adira didn't comment on his decision at all, which was immediately suspicious, much like the rest of her interactions with Cassandra.

"Do you think we should have let her come with us?" he asked.

She shook her head  _ no _ , but provided no further clarification. Alright then. 

The path before them stretched far over the hills and mountains in the distance. They had decided that the most likely place for the demon to be was her old stronghold, and they were well aware that it would take  _ days _ to reach it, but it was  _ something. _ Something to work towards. 

Something to distract him.

Days away from them, a man was laying on a bed of moss and grass.

His coarse black hair, strewn across the earth below him, was a stark contrast to the acidic yellow-green of his eyes. Resting his head against his arm, the man stared up at the ceiling of his home, merely a half of what it used to be. The grass was only just starting to grow back in the remains of the Great Tree. The squirrels were coming back, one at a time, as were the birds, one of which was currently nestled against his side. It was a big crow, one of the biggest he'd ever seen, and it just wouldn't leave him alone for some reason. Alright.

Hector shifted against the moss below him. It was soft, just as soft as a mattress, but with the pulse of life running through it, which regular houses and beds lacked. His friends had always found it amazing how he could sleep anywhere, but nothing compared to a living bed of grass or moss. Feathers were still and quiet. Moss whispered lullabies into his ear.

The crow stretched its wings with a squawk. It started pecking at his side insistently.

"What is it?" he mumbled, but a rumble from beneath answered him before the crow could. He sat up.  _ Something _ was near. With some luck, it would be an earthquake.

But he never was that lucky, was he?

As he stood up and unsheathed his sword, the half-broken wooden door was pierced by two black spikes, which crossed at the top in an almost ritualistic fashion. It crumbled to splinters and sawdust in front of him. 

“I'm afraid you’ve overstayed your welcome.” a voice declared from beyond its remains.

And then a boy stepped out. 

He couldn't be older than sixteen, from how small he appeared in stature and size, but the confidence in his step suggested something much more powerful than his unimposing frame. The bright glow of his cerulean blue hair was no more reassuring than his attitude, in fact. But what was most threatening about the boy was the shining oval stone lodged in his chest, right over where his heart must have been. 

An opal, that gleamed the same ominous blue as his eyes.

The Moonstone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It literally took me thirty minutes to post this chapter. Thanks, wifi.  
> Firefly said "Hector is a Disney Princess in terms of animal friends" and then we made it a trope. You're welcome.
> 
> That awkward moment when you don't want to be mean to a girl that's been manipulated and trapped but she also kinda stabbed your son so you don't feel like having her around either. :/
> 
> Leave a comment and I'll read it after me n the fam watch the Hobbit
> 
> -Cass


	4. Help

_ The black of the rocks exploded into red. _

_ The forest withered around her in a matter of seconds, painting the once idyllic landscape with the colours of a hellish, barren wasteland.  _

_ She screamed. _

_ No sound came out. _

_ The demon smiled.  _

_ Blood beneath her bare feet. _

_ Darkness. _

_ The rocks dyed the sky a terrifying red. _

_ Silence. _

_ Complete silence. _

_ Her hair came loose, not gold, but black. _

_ The demon laughed ( _ laughed _ , the first sound she’d heard). _

_ Laugh. _

_ Laugh. _

**_Laugh_ ** _ - _

She could still hear it when she sat up in bed, covered in a cold sweat and breathing way too fast. A worried chittering noise from her bedside table brought her back to the present.

“Hey…” Rapunzel wheezed, welcoming Pascal into her cupped hands, “I’m okay. It was just… a nightmare. It’s nothing.”

Honestly, she’d expected it. After the stress of the previous night, she would have been more surprised to find herself sleeping peacefully. She could still feel that little tingle of pain in her arm, even after the cut had scarred. The sting in her heart. And she knew she’d  _ felt  _ something. She had  _ felt _ Cass’s presence, somehow, close to her heart and warm like it used to be. 

Cassandra was not gone yet. She had gone out of her way to ensure that Varian would return home safe. There was still hope, there  _ had  _ to be, because she needed to think that there was.

Pascal seemed to sense her discomfort, as always, because he hugged her thumb with a little squeak of support. She smiled softly. “Thanks, buddy.”

Her smile faded as quickly as it had bloomed when the window creaked, swinging gently with the summer breeze.

_ That wasn’t open before _ .

Cassandra had climbed towers before. But never one as tall, as guarded or (quite frankly) as ridiculously shaped as that one. She really had to wonder why on Earth the King had chosen a tower, of all places, to put his daughter’s room, but was she going to ask him? Never.

Her resolve was strong as she made her way up. But, as soon as she reached the balcony, it withered away and crumbled into dust. So much for that.

Rapunzel’s sleeping figure looked smaller than she remembered. She curled up against the pillow, holding her hands close to her chest, as her hair lay strewn across her bed like an enormous golden blanket. Sweating. Panting slightly, only to then hold her breath. A sting of guilt pierced Cassandra’s heart. Nightmares. Rapunzel curled up even tighter. And then the roots of her hair began to glow. 

The golden shine spread quickly from the roots to the tips, bathing the entire room around her in the light of day, if only for a moment. 

Cassandra gasped, stumbling a few steps back and falling against a cupboard. 

And then the room was dark again.

A loud gasp sounded out from Rapunzel’s bed, followed by a little chitter. The princess whispered something in the dark, but it wasn't addressed to her. In fact, she didn't seem to have noticed her at all. Had she noticed her hair shining like the sun itself before that brief flash of light had faded from the room? Probably not.

And then Rapunzel spoke up.

"I miss her, Pascal."

Cassandra took a deep breath and stepped out of the shadow.

Miles outside the kingdom walls, two siblings sat on opposite sides of a stream. 

Quirin was hunched over, a position he'd gotten used to after being one of the tallest boys his age throughout his childhood and one of the tallest men in his village. Not to mention the considerable height difference between him and his son, plus all his work in the fields. His spine was always bound to curve a little too much but, in all honesty, it was barely noticeable at his age.

Adira sat straight, her legs crossed and her hands resting on her knees. She had always moved in a strangely formal fashion for a warrior. Then again, that may have been because she had no qualms about looking down at people from her considerable height.

They had walked all day. The setting sun dyed the clouds a bright orange and the sky a soft yellow.

And they were quiet.

They were quiet, but not for long.

"How did you get out?"

"Mh?" he raised his head from the stream.

"How did you get out of the amber?" she asked him, matter-of-factly. 

"Oh, it was the Princess. She sang the Decay Incantation and it melted." he answered, with equal earnestness. Adira looked surprised. Less by his answer, and more by how calm he'd been about it. 

"It's been a while since we last saw each other. When I heard a rumour you were in trouble, I'll admit that I didn't expect _ trouble _ to mean a giant block of amber." she sighed.

"I know."

"What?"

"You told me this before." he nodded.

She quirked her brow: "What? No. I only said this when I came to see you…"

She paused. "Wait… you-"

He gave her a tired smile: "I heard you."

Adira stopped for a moment.

"You were conscious?" she inquired, very quietly.

"I was."

"The whole time?"

"Not every second, but most of it. Hector came by, too." he admitted, "He was very… vocal, about what he thought of my life choices."

She was the first person to hear of it. With some luck, she would be the  _ only _ person to hear of it, but he'd wanted to talk to her about it for too long to keep it a secret.

"I figured he would. He didn't believe the rumours." she sighed.

"To be fair, if three years ago you'd told me I would be trapped in an enormous block of amber, I wouldn't have believed you either."

She shook her head with a half smile.

"Thank you." he added, quietly, "For talking to me. And for telling me about Varian. When I couldn't hear his voice anymore, I… I thought…"

He didn't finish the sentence, but he didn't need to.

Adira nodded. Before she could answer him, though, a loud crack of thunder roared from somewhere in the forest, like a storm without clouds.

They could've sworn they'd heard a scream.

Immediately, they sprang to their feet.

"It came from that way." Adira observed, pointing at the old thorny path behind her.

He nodded and, as quick as they could, they made their way towards the source of the sound. The thorns got thicker and thicker as they went on. Adira sliced through the bushes with ease, but they still had to be careful when they leaned down to avoid the dangling remains of the thorny vines. Quirin's sleeve got caught in a vine, leaving a tear along the edge and a small scratch on his skin. He didn't feel it. 

When they finally reached a clearing, there was something wrong. A lot of things, actually, the most notable being the varying states of decay in which everything in the clearing lay. Rotten bark was peeling off the tall trees. The grass had wilted into a faded brown and the ground below it was dry and barren and almost completely covered in dead leaves. The faded flowers crumbled to dust whenever their feet brushed against them.

"What is this?" Adira stared listlessly at the dead forest that was not dead before.

A branch fell from a tall tree and that's when they saw him.

Ensnared in thorny vines as he was, Hector's struggles to break free only resulted in his position becoming increasingly more precarious. If the branches he was trapped in were to break, he would fall at least thirty feet down, which was bound to at the very least break both of his legs.

His best bet would have been to stay still, but he gave no sign of stopping.

"Hector!!" Quirin called out.

That got him to stop struggling, momentarily. His face was too distant to see clearly, but 

appeared to be somewhere between confused and alarmed.

"Hector!!" Adira yelled, "Don't move. We'll get you down from there."

He looked confused, to say the least. But at least that got him to stop moving and bought them some time. Now there was just the question of finding a way to climb a fragile, extremely tall, decaying tree without anyone falling from it. Easier said than done.

Adira did not wait for instructions, of course. She immediately got to work climbing on the rotting branches, without a word.

"Adira!" he called out.

"Stay there!" she yelled back, "You're out of practice  _ and  _ you have a concussion. I'm not rescuing both of you."

It was an extremely valid point he really couldn't argue with.

So he just watched her climb with the grace of a grasshopper upon branch after branch, never letting herself linger on an unstable spot, never stopping long enough for the tree to decide it had had enough of her.

Quirin may have been stuck to the ground, but he was not powerless. His eyes drifted to the hundreds of dead leaves scattered around the clearing. A softer landing, if anything went wrong.

He began to pile up the leaves under the tree his siblings were currently stuck on, as fast and as high as he could, occasionally looking up to check on them. Adira was getting very close, but a few branches had snapped beneath her feet. She had to be careful.

A drop of blood landed on Quirin's arm.

He gasped when he realized where it came from: "Adira, he's  _ bleeding _ !!"

She didn't stop, but she gave him a quick look of acknowledgement. 

Hector was not necessarily silent or still, but his movements  _ were _ slowing down more and more.

By the time Adira reached him, he looked almost drowsy. The branches that held him up creaked dangerously when she reached out to grab him. But, once again, she was quick to yank him off of the branch merely a moment before it snapped. Holding him by the front of his shirt, she let her eyes fall to the now considerably tall pile of leaves below.

And, without a second thought, she jumped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pascal is still the best problem solver in this entire show.   
> No, friends, I don't know if it's the concussion or the excessive trauma that is making Quirin so matter-of-fact, either :D  
> Adira is still awesome. That is all.
> 
> Leave a comment because it fights off the sad. :D
> 
> -Cass


	5. Forgive Me

They hadn’t seen each other in quite some time, Cassandra realized as soon as she laid eyes on her former friend. Rapunzel looked terrible. She was pale. Her hair was mussed and her arms were trembling a little. She looked frightened. Even more so when she noticed Cassandra.

She immediately jumped off the bed with her nightgown trailing behind her: “Cass?”

She was stepping back until she noticed the state Cassandra was in. Then she stepped forward: “Oh- Cass, what happened to you?”

Rapunzel all but ran up to her, stopping dead in her tracks just before reaching her. Almost like she was afraid of being attacked if she touched her. She had gone from frightened to worried. And Cassandra lost every bit of her resolve. She fell to her knees in front of the princess, raising her hands in surrender. In those few seconds of silence as she held them up, she certainly didn’t expect Rapunzel to take them in hers and kneel in front of her. She looked up at the princess, in complete confusion: “What are you doing?”

“Cass, what happened to you? I just want to help you. Tell me what happened.” she coaxed, gently. Her hands were still cold with the terror of her nightmares, but she held Cassandra’s like they were made of glass. Like they were precious. 

“I…”

“How did you get here?”

“I climbed.”

Rapunzel laughed, and it was a sound she'd missed more than she was willing to admit.

“But really, Cass. What happened to you?” she asked, letting her smile sink into a sea of worry. Cassandra lowered her head.

“I ran away as soon as I sensed you were coming.” she murmured, “I thought it was over. But then, when I left, the spirit that was with me…”

“What spirit?”

“A girl. A ghost. Or so I thought. I couldn’t find her after I left, and then…”

She shivered. Rapunzel looked worried, but she encouraged her to continue with a nod.

“And then Varian walked up to me.”

That seemed to not only throw her off, but horrify her as well. 

“But I saw him go home!” she croaked, “I know he went home. He said he wanted to go home. Why was he-”

“Because it wasn’t him!”

“What?”

“It wasn’t him. Or, well, it was, but… he wasn’t in control. It was… her. The ghost. She asked me for the Moonstone and, when I said no, she stole it. She tricked me.” Cassandra looked down, again. It was almost shameful how easily she’d been deceived, “Varian absorbed the Moonstone and trapped me in black rocks. I don’t know where they went.”

Rapunzel’s face was now as white as her nightgown. It was the very face of panic. Rigid and pale, she looked at her with a vacant stare.

“How did you get out?” she whispered, but only her lips moved.

Cassandra sighed with shame and a lot of frustration: “Adira.”

Seeing her amused and somewhat apologetic expression, she gave Rapunzel a very sheepish smile: “And Varian’s father. They were looking for him. I wanted to go with them, but…”

“But?”

“They said no.”

The princess gave a trembling smile: “Well, you and Adira never got along that w-”

“Not Adira.”

“What?”

“She didn’t say anything. I wouldn’t have listened to her, anyway.” Cassandra admitted, “I wanted to go. I wanted to help.”

Rapunzel tilted her head to the side: “So why did you listen to Quirin instead?”

It was at those words that Cassandra lost her cool: “Because there’s nothing I can say to him!” she cried, “It’s  _ my _ fault that Varian’s in this situation in the first place! What was I supposed to tell him? What  _ could _ I tell him? I couldn’t even look him in the eyes after what I did!” 

She couldn’t look into Rapunzel’s eyes, either. If only she had, she would have found only sympathy and compassion in them. The princess stretched her hands forward, very slowly, to set them on her shoulders. No hurry. No threat. Then she pulled her into her arms. 

Cassandra clung to the back of her nightgown with pure desperation in her shaking grip.

“Why?” she cried, “Why are you being so nice to me?  _ Why aren’t you angry _ ??”

Rapunzel ran a hand through her dark and messy hair. She didn’t answer, not then, nor later.

Pascal gave Cassandra a shrug from behind the princess. 

The moon was rising.

Adira landed in the pile of leaves on her back. Hector, less prepared for the jump, landed on his side with a groan of pain. The pile exploded under their weight, sending dead leaves flying everywhere.

“That wasn’t my best idea.” Adira admitted, still lying on the ground. The fact that she wasn't back on her feet within three seconds of losing her balance was not a very good sign.

"Wasn't your worst idea, either." Hector grumbled, sluggishly pushing himself onto his back. 

Quirin was quick to reach them: "Are you alright?"

"No, I think I'm hallucinating." his brother joked. Most likely. It  _ was _ a joke, wasn't it? Still, there was a very suspicious patch of blood to worry about. Quirin knelt next to him, all but dragging him up to sit against a tree. The fact that Hector didn't try to bite him may have been the most worrying sign. He was disturbingly docile as Quirin examined the red stain on his side with the pallor of fear upon his face. It was nearly in the same spot as…

"Let me take a look." Adira intervened after a single glance at his vacant eyes, all but pulling him out of the way. A little rough around the edges, but thoughtful. She poked the sides of the wound, eliciting an aggressive, but half-hearted growl from Hector. "Eh, it's not deep." she announced: "He'll be fine."

If Quirin's sigh of relief had been any deeper, he may have breathed his soul out. 

"It's fine." Hector reiterated, waving Adira off of him, "Just a cut."

He looked dizzy at worst, but they  _ did  _ need to stop the bleeding before it actually got serious. Quirin gathered up Hector's half torn cape to press it against his side. The man barely contained a hiss of pain, but didn't protest. 

Quirin could feel his Reassuring Tone coming up.

“What happened to you, Hector?”

The man’s fluorescent eyes shifted back and forth between the two of them: “I have a message for you.”

“A message from who?”

There was a flash of childhood fear in Hector’s eyes when he answered: “Zhan Tiri.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's right kids :D  
> Just because we knew it was ZT all along doesn't mean that Hector did (poor thing)  
> Pascal is and remains awesome.  
> And yay, the team is finally reunited :D  
> Not much to say here, except feel free to wear your shipping goggles in the first part of the chapter if that's what floats your boat :,)
> 
> Leave me a comment to let me know what you think :)
> 
> -Cass


	6. Two Can Keep A Secret

Cassandra was still in hiding, for the time being. Still, it  _ was  _ considerably easier to hide with the protection of the princess herself. Rapunzel had attempted to convince her to let more people in on the secret.

“At least your father.” she pleaded, “He’s been so worried, Cass. He’s seriously considering leaving Corona to find you! I heard a rumour he’s already packing.”

“I don’t want him to see me like this.” Cassandra mumbled, pulling her knees closer to her chest. She looked terrible, too, she had realized as soon as she’d looked into a mirror. Her skin lacked its usual shine and her eyes were more sunken in than before. They looked dull, their dark grey seemed so boring compared to the phosphorescent blue they’d known. She did  _ not  _ miss the demon’s venomous words in her ear now that she had Rapunzel to talk to, but she realized something disturbing. She  _ did _ miss the Moonstone. She hadn’t felt much discomfort or pain when it was lodged in her chest, she’d felt only power. 

But, as much as it hurt, she realized something else. 

That power had never been truly hers. She had stolen it just as the demon had, she’d been manipulated the entire time, like the moron she was. And now she couldn’t look her friends, not even her own father (because that’s what he was, he  _ was _ her father, she had come to realize) in the eyes. 

Rapunzel sat down next to her.

“Look, Cass, I can’t do this.”

“Huh?”

“I can’t keep this secret forever. There are so many people here that have been worried about you, or scared of you, and I need them to know that it's okay,  _ you're _ okay.” she whispered, apologetically, “You’ve been gone for so long. I’m so happy to see you again. I’ve missed you. But I’m not the only one.”

She pulled up her knees just as Cassandra had: “It feels selfish to keep you hidden like this. I don’t  _ want _ to just… keep you stowed away somewhere and never tell anyone. Keep you away from people who love you. I don’t like it.” her voice cracked, “You know who else did that?”

_ Oh no _ . 

She hadn’t thought of that. Oh, they had talked about… well, about their  _ mother _ , a few times. They had talked about how Rapunzel still cried in her sleep sometimes, how it had been so much worse since the red rocks, how she flinched and backed away at the sound of shattering glass, how she ran to Eugene sometimes after a nightmare and held him tight like he was going to fall apart if she ever let go. And he held her just as tightly, like she was going to be ripped away from him.

All of that was what had pushed Cassandra to realize it. She had  _ not _ had it the worst out of the two of them. She had grown up with a father that, while not perfect, was doing all he could for her. And, while it had shaken her to know she’d been abandoned, she had grown up with someone that loved her. Friends. People. A normal life.

And Rapunzel could have had the same, if not for the woman they’d both called  _ mother _ .

That word felt wrong on her tongue lately.

All her venomous words against Rapunzel for something that (Varian was right)  _ wasn't her fault _ were only poison on her lips, making her sick with guilt, and it was frankly disturbing how much her feelings in regards to her mother had changed.

She looked back at the princess. She had gone silent, but her eyes were talking loud enough.

“Fine.” she conceded. “One person.”

The Captain of the Guards did not leave Corona the following day.

Hector was not aware of who he’d run into, as they came to realize. Not entirely. Oh, he knew very well who had sent him. He knew the ancient demon, because he would have known her from anywhere. But his description of her (or rather, her new vessel) suggested that he had no idea who Varian was, which left them wondering just how much they should tell him. Hector was just a little bit less merciful than their sister. Not only that, but he utterly despised Zhan Tiri and all she stood for; he would see her vanquished before ever thinking of anything else. 

“She said you’d know what this means.” he simply stated, pointing at the wound in his chest. His eyes narrowed as soon as they landed on Quirin’s face, which, judging by the familiar tingling in his hands, must have been white as a sheet by that point. 

Adira, as always, stepped in: "Were you at the Great Tree when this happened, by any chance?"

"Yes. My turn. Why does Quirin look like he's going to pass out?" he asked, pointing at the aforementioned man with a skeptical look in his eyes.

"He's concussed." Adira answered, curtly. Technically, although it wasn't the correct answer, it wasn't a lie, so Quirin let it slide. With the memory of finding Varian covered in blood still fresh in his mind, he could  _ not  _ afford to trust Hector just yet. Because if it happened again, and Varian did not open his eyes this time, Quirin was sure he would go mad in every way possible.

Hector gave him a sideways glance: "Really?"

"So it would seem." he finally answered, ripping his mind away from those terrifying thoughts. No point dwelling on them. Of course, that didn't make the painful knot in his gut go away, but he was used to that part. Oh, joy.

"So why are you walking around? You know, there's blood on your shirt. It's not a good look on you." Hector teased. Again, the internal debate over how much information he could relay was thankfully interrupted by Adira. 

“It’s not that bad. We just need to monitor him for a while.” she assured him. He really hoped that part was true. She must have been referencing the same words the doctor had offered them the  _ first  _ time Quirin had been knocked unconscious. It was in the exact same spot as that old scar, too. Must have been cursed, that spot. 

“It’s fine.” he nodded. “I will bring some water to clean the wound.”

“I can do that.” Adira waved, already leaving the clearing, and he couldn’t exactly argue with that. 

It was, unsurprisingly, a completely intentional move on her part. Which Hector immediately acknowledged and, more notably, took advantage of.

“I thought you were dead.” he said, earnestly.

Quirin wanted to answer appropriately. In a sensible manner. However, he did not respond well under pressure, usually, and this was no exception.

"I get that a lot."

_ Damnit. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I live for awkward Quirin (but y'all knew that)  
> Yay secrets!! None of these people have learned anything!!! :D  
> Give 'em time.
> 
> Leave me a comment to let me know what you think and I'll see ya Friday
> 
> -Cass


	7. Two Can't Keep A Secret

Simply talking to each other was a more daunting task than either of them had anticipated. In all fairness, Hector hadn't foreseen ever talking to his brother in the first place.  _ Brother _ . The word came so natural, even after they'd fallen out, because it had simply been the default word to refer to Quirin, and that was that. Because for so many years, when asked about him and Adira, Hector would, without a second thought, call them his siblings.

So why on earth the conversation had immediately become so unbearably awkward, he had no idea. Quirin answered his questions curtly and uncertainly, his face being painted with a worse and worse pallor every time his eyes fell upon Hector's wound, but outright refusing to tell him why.

Then, he asked Hector a question, instead of answering.

"The boy you told us about… how did he look? Do you think the demon has done him any harm?"

He couldn't say he knew. 

"I don't know." he admitted, "But I, for one, would never want to have Zhan Tiri puppeting me around. Whatever else she's done to the kid, that is probably the worst of his problems right now. I wonder if he's conscious or not."

It was mostly innocent curiosity on his part. Quirin, though, lost whatever colour was left in his face: "I pray he isn't."

Hector already suspected that his companions knew more than they were telling him. That reaction all but confirmed it. 

He briefly entertained the idea of simply asking him why he troubled himself so much with the fate of this boy. Sensitive as he may have been, Quirin did not lose his mind like that over a stranger. But asking him may have spawned more and more lies from his siblings. Although, up until that moment, it had been Adira who had answered all his questions, even those not addressed to her. Maybe it was worth a try.

"Tell me, brother. If I may still call you that." he started.

"You may." Quirin nodded, without hesitation.

"Good. Say, why do you look like you're going to drop dead every time I mention that boy who's being possessed?" he asked.

Okay, so he may have been a little indelicate. 

Quirin's face fell. But, to his surprise, he answered: "I'm sorry, brother. I'm not sure how much I can tell you at the moment. If I told you who that boy is, I would have to ask you to promise something you may not agree with."

He was being surprisingly honest, without Adira around to help him spin lies. So, more out of curiosity than logic, he simply said: "Tell me."

Silence fell for a moment as his brother struggled to find the right words.

"That boy you saw…" he started, finally, "...is not a stranger. He is my son, Varian."

Hector felt something like a punch in the gut. Good thing he was good at ignoring those.

"A few days ago, Varian snuck out to meet the holder of the Moonstone, Cassandra. I, along with the Princess, set out to find him. And find him we did, after he'd been injured close to death and then only narrowly saved by the power of the Sundrop."

It was already starting to be too much. The  _ holder _ of the Moonstone was apparently not the boy. When had the Moonstone been stolen? And by that Cassandra girl, the lady-in-waiting? How had Quirin's son (he had a son, apparently) been injured so gravely in the first place? Could the Sundrop now access her powers freely?

Still, Quirin interpreted his silence as a sign to continue, or perhaps he simply had to speak without stopping or risk collapsing.

"I brought him back home and I thought, I  _ hoped _ it was all over. Then I realized he'd been possessed." his voice cracked, "I fell and hit my head as I was trying to stop Zhan Tiri's escape. She then stole the Moonstone from Cassandra and… apparently headed to the Great Tree, and that's when you met her. But she is  _ still _ possessing my son. So I'm asking you, I'm  _ begging _ you to promise me…" he said, turning to Hector, "...that you will not harm that boy, possessed or not. I'm not asking that you think of him as family, or that you don't defend yourself should Zhan Tiri attack you, but please…"

The clearing fell silent once more. 

The rift between the three of them felt even heavier than before. And now, it was up to him to place the first stitch.

“You have my word.”

Miles away, a hushed conversation was taking place.

“I’m worried.”

“I know.”

“And I know it’s not our business, but…”

“You know what, Sunshine? I think it  _ is _ our business.”

“What?”

“It became our business when they took  _ our _ friend.”

She smiled at him, with less sincerity than he would have liked to see: “You have a point.”

“I know.” he grinned. His girlfriend had been stressed beyond belief in those past few days. She would stare out the window more longingly than ever before, suffer from terrible nightmares, flinch at any loud noise. Her mental state was about as sturdy as crystal. So, after many attempts on his part to get her to tell him what was wrong, she’d cracked. Even after telling him about Varian’s predicament, though, she still adamantly refused to tell him how she had obtained that information or why she wasn't on her way there already.

_ I just know _ , she insisted, any time he asked her. So he stopped asking. It didn’t matter how she knew; it didn’t make what she was telling him any less disturbing. 

The kid could never catch a break, could he?

Eugene already had several plans. Thief or not, coming up with several plans on the spot was a necessary skill, he thought. Plan A was really just  _ looking for Varian _ . But it presented a problem, and that was convincing people to back him up, because facing an ancient demon alone when there were other options was simply idiotic and more likely to harm Varian than help him. So Plan A was also coming up with convincing arguments ( _ we owe him, it’s not just about Varian, two people are not enough and we should offer backup _ …) to persuade at least a few people to join in and to let Rapunzel go on the journey in the first place. He could leave at any time, really, but her last unexpected departure had caused a massive wave of panic in its wake, and he was  _ not _ going to face an angry King again anytime soon, thank you very much.

Then there was the matter of convincing Rapunzel herself to come along. Clearly, she wanted to. She was visibly tormented by her own inaction, but there was  _ something _ holding her back.

That afternoon, she walked up to him with a more sincere, but still very worried, smile.

“I have something to show you.” she announced. 

That was nothing out of the ordinary. Usually, it meant she wanted to show him a new painting (and she had been painting almost feverishly), particularly one she was proud of or one that included him. 

That was not what happened. 

Instead, she led him to a hallway where an enormous, centuries old painting was hanged on the wall. With an excited smile, she slipped her hand under it and lifted it (with some effort) to reveal a hole that was just big enough and tall enough for one person to crawl through..

“A secret passage!” he exclaimed, “Wow, Blondie. You’ve been exploring.”

“Yeah…” she laughed.

Without another word, she climbed into the passage and was out of sight in a flash. So it was just a hole, not a tunnel. 

That might explain why he nearly fell through it, landing with little grace on the other side. Good thing no one was around to see it.

“Out of practice, are we, Fitzherbert?”

_ Nevermind _ .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Hey so you have a nephew aaaand he's possessed by your worst childhood nightmare"  
> -Quirin, basically.  
> Everyone here is emotionally incompetent and y'all know it as well as I.  
> But hey at least they're trying and we appreciate it :D
> 
> Can I get an F in the chat for Eugene?
> 
> -Cass


	8. Three Is Company

Adira, of course, returned about as soon as their conversation had ended. Yet another perfectly intentional move on her part. Obviously.

“Here’s the water.” she smirked, passing them a flask without disturbing her perfect posture. 

Quirin did not comment on it. “Thanks.” he said, steeling himself to clean the wound. That got him a sideways glance from  _ both _ his siblings. They weren’t buying into any of his bravado. And now they both knew he was trying to block out the image of his son being skewered in that exact same spot, which didn't help his case any. But he was fine. It was fine. Cleaning cuts, scrapes, burns and all the likes was more common than he would've liked in his household.

“I can do that myself.” Hector pointed out, “I didn’t live alone for years without knowing how to clean a cut, you know.”

He had already swiftly stolen the rag and the flask from his hands. Any weak protests on his part were easily overpowered by Hector’s indifferent demeanor. So he gave up.

As soon as it was just the three of them, though, sitting in a circle on a carpet of dead leaves and wilted grass, the silence became increasingly awkward. There were a lot of things on their mind, questions, answers, bargains, jokes, but who would dare to speak first?

Quirin shifted to sit against a rock full of dried moss. Something pressed against his hip. 

_ Oh, right _ .

_ There's an icebreaker. _

He cleared his throat. His siblings' heads immediately snapped in his direction.

"I think you forgot something when you came to see me." he observed, digging through his pocket. The little bag was still there.

Adira did not seem to know what he was talking about, for once. She squinted at him with a curious look in her eyes. Hector was less confused.

"To be fair," he intervened, "I didn't know if you were alive."

"I know, Hector. But I am. So I reckon I should return these." he smiled, almost apologetically, as he plucked a small wooden bead from the bag. Tangled up in the few scarce strands of hair he hadn’t been able to detach from it was the hook of a faded black earring.

Adira wouldn't get up just to see what he held in his hands so, once he'd managed to separate the artifacts, he tossed her the earring.

"Oh." she commented, "So that's where I lost it."

It was Hector’s turn to be surprised: “Lost it?”

She shrugged, reaching for the hoop in her left ear pensively, as if she were considering whether or not to wear the right earring's twin now that she had it. She didn’t dignify the question with a verbal response. Quirin’s lips curved up: “Ah, I see. I believe he may have misunderstood you losing the earring as you leaving a token or something like that.”

“That’s on me for thinking she would be more respectful of tradition. I should’ve known better.” 

Hector’s tone had gone from surprised, to defensive, to cold.  _ Really _ cold. It didn't take much to figure out that those two had history beyond their little dispute back home. The tone in which Adira answered all but confirmed his suspicions.

" _ Maybe _ I didn't have to worry about tributes because I didn't insult him the whole time I was there." she suggested, condescendingly.

Hector scoffed: "How would you know about that?"

"Okay, stop. Both of you, stop."

And oh, how familiar it was when they finally shut up and kept glaring at each other all the same.

Quirin sighed.

It was going to be a very long journey.

"So let me get this straight." Eugene started for what was maybe the fourth time, "Not only are we dealing with an ancient, cruel and powerful demon here, but we're dealing with an ancient, cruel and powerful demon who stole the Moonstone and thought it was a good idea to possess a sixteen-year-old for some reason."

"It  _ is  _ a good idea!!" Cassandra groaned. She had spent less than an hour with him and she was already cursing Rapunzel for talking her into it. "I don't know about you, Fitzherbert, but I'd rather not stab him a second time! Besides…" her voice dropped to a whisper as soon as she noticed how loud she was getting, "...Varian is a genius. She told me not even a week ago that she would either have him on her side or dead, no in-betweens. This seems awfully handy, doesn't it? And that trick already worked once…"

Rapunzel rubbed her shoulder in support: "It's okay, Cass."

It really wasn't. It had been stupid of her to fall for that trick. She'd been beating herself up over a lot of things in the past few days, but losing the Moonstone to a spirit over a simple trick like that was the one most fresh in her mind. She didn't even  _ have _ to get close!! She could've just relieved the pressure on Varian's ribs, made a safer cage, and be done with it. No contact necessary.

_ Don't beat yourself up over it, Cass _ , Rapunzel had told her, over and over again,  _ you were just worried about him, it's normal. She was manipulating you. _

The  _ again _ in the last sentence was unspoken, but very clear.

"My point is…" Eugene groaned, "...are we going to go help him or are we leaving it to the senior citizens?"

"They're really not that old." Rapunzel pointed out for what felt like the hundredth time.

"Why, have you asked them? Adira has  _ white hair _ . But also great skin, for some reason. Maybe I should ask her w-"

"Eugene, focus!" 

"Sorry. My point is, are we going after him or are we gonna sit here indefinitely, lamenting how bad our current situation is?" he inquired, gesturing in a somehow even more exaggerated fashion than usual.

"But how?" Rapunzel chimed in, "We don't even know where to st-"

"The Great Tree."

They both turned to Cassandra.

"They were headed for the Great Tree the last time I saw them. They shouldn't even be  _ close _ at this rate. Maybe we could still catch up."

"They have several days on us..." the princess pointed out.

Cassandra smirked: "Yes. And they're on foot."

A mischievous smile bloomed on Rapunzel's face: "Oh, I see what you mean."

"What do you say, Raps?" she grinned, "You up for a little race?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eugene is like me. His braincells only activate if there's someone with less braincells nearby (I call it the Sibling Instinct)  
> So yeah, turns out Hector and Adira are not actually cool yet. Shocker.  
> If anyone's wondering how Varian's doing, you're going to be waiting a little while, sorry :,)
> 
> Leave a comment because writing is fun but draining :D  
> -Cass


	9. Nightfall

_ Someone was singing. _

_ Softly, and a little out of tune, but for whatever reason it was mesmerising to him. _

_ He didn't know the words. _

_ He was safe, though. _

_ Laying in a bed that was way too big for him (he was growing fast, the singing voice said), tucked in with unusual care and precision. There was a book of fables on the bedside table. A few rocks and pebbles. _

_ He could see the blue curtains of the room flutter in a summer breeze. _

_ And then the singing stopped. _

_ Something shattered. Glass? No, probably ceramic. _

_ Footsteps. Fast. Running, directly below him, towards the stairs- no, out the door, and fading quickly into the night. _

_ Something was burning. _

“This was the best idea I’ve had in a very long time!” Cassandra laughed, completely breathless. In all fairness, she hadn’t  _ planned _ for them to fall off the horses and into the river, but swimming for the first time in… who knows how long,  _ that _ had made the growing bruise on her shoulder completely worth it.

Rapunzel, equally breathless and trying to pull her hair out of the river before it could capture the entire local fish population, nodded at her with an exhausted smile on her face.

“Yeah…” she panted, “But we’d better dry ourselves off before the sun goes down.”

“Way ahead of you, Blondie.” 

Eugene seemed to be hard at work collecting firewood, an excellent idea, given the shiver that occasionally racked his shoulders. Cassandra picked up a few rocks and pebbles to create a suitable space for a campfire. She spotted an indent in the cliffside that looked like it would protect them from any rain or wind or birds of prey and made her way to it to inspect it. 

A few hours and a lot of bickering over firewood later, everyone was sound asleep. 

No, they weren’t.

Eugene was, apparently, since he was straight up snoring after their dip in the river, but the girls were less prone to getting a good night's sleep. They both stared at the walls of the cliff, rigid and still, without batting an eye.

"Are you asleep?" Rapunzel whispered into the darkness.

"No." she sighed, "I… haven't been sleeping too well."

"Me neither." the princess admitted. 

"I know. Raps, that night I snuck into your room…"

"Yeah, I know. I was having a nightmare."

"Yes, but…" she turned to her friend: "Did you notice your hair was glowing?"

Rapunzel gave her a confused look: "No…"

"It was just for a moment, a few seconds before you woke up. It kinda… flashed and then it was back to normal."

"I hadn't noticed…" 

Her pensive gaze dropped to the ground. She seemed to be considering the implications of that strange phenomenon, and who could blame her? Every time her hair started glowing randomly, it was because of…

"The Moonstone." Cassandra whispered.

That seemed to get her attention: "Huh?"

"The Moonstone. Usually when your hair glows it's because of that."

"You think…" her voice dropped to a whisper, "You think maybe it's Varian?"

"I  _ hope _ it's him.” she sighed.

The rest of the night was spent in silence. 

If walking was awkward with two people constantly antagonizing each other, trying to settle down and sleep was worse. Particularly because Quirin wasn’t allowed to sleep through the night. It was generally agreed upon that someone with a probable concussion should either not sleep at all, or be awoken every two or three hours: a job that, after a  _ brief _ and  _ polite  _ discussion between his  _ reasonable  _ siblings (also known as rock, paper, scissors), had fallen to Hector, because he  _ didn’t need to sleep anyway _ .

Adira had settled down with a shrug, a few metres away from them. Her hair was pillowy enough for her to comfortably lay her head down and go to sleep, so she pretty much just went to sleep right then and there. Hector sat against a tree to keep guard.

Honestly, the poor man could’ve gone to sleep ten times over for how long it was taking Quirin. He probably could’ve kept watch all night with the familiar gnawing in his gut. And so he lay there, completely awake, unable to escape this nightmare of a field trip even for a couple hours and with the nagging sensation of feline eyes burrowing into his back.

Eventually, he gave up.

“Alright.” he snapped, very quietly, as he pulled himself up to sit across from Hector: “What is it?”

To his credit, Hector kept an impeccable straight face: “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Sleep while you can.”

“Well, I can’t.”

“That sounds like a  _ you _ problem.” he shrugged.

“And now it’s a  _ both of us  _ problem. We need to talk.”

Hector made a face, but he didn’t protest. From the way he’d been staring, he had something on his mind.

“So. What’s wrong, Hector? You sound a little defensive.”

“I’m not defensive.” he hissed. From the way his face shifted back to indifference immediately, he had realized how he’d just proved the point. “I’m just not in the best company. It’s making me feel a little unsafe.”

His eyes traveled over his shoulders and to Adira.

“That’s the other thing that worries me.” Quirin started, “I thought you two had worked things out. Why do you keep antagonizing her? What happened? Assume I know nothing. Because I really don’t.”

Hector sighed.

“She was travelling with the Sundrop and they entered my territory. And that was not a fun day. To sum it up, the princess killed the Great Tree with the Decay Incantation and it collapsed on me. Adira saved me.”

“She’s been using that incantation an awful lot.”

“What?”   
“Nothing, go on.” 

Hector gave him a sideways glance, but ultimately elected to ignore the comment: “We did talk it out after that. We agreed not to get in each other’s way.”

“That’s good.”

“So I thought. We went our separate ways. We met again almost three months later. And that was when she told me about you. A year. That’s how long it took her to tell me. I didn’t even believe her.”

Quirin tilted his head to the side: “That hardly seems like a crime to me, Hector.”

“She lied to me.” Hector hissed, “And if she lied about that, who knows what else she told me. Or you. I wouldn’t trust her too much.”

Quirin rubbed the bridge of his nose: “Oh, boy. Look, Hector, don’t take it personally, but I feel like you’re taking this a little too far. One lie doesn’t make a liar.”

“Then what does?”

He couldn’t answer him. Not because he didn’t know how to, but because Hector immediately shushed him. “Did you hear that?” he whispered.

He was right. There was  _ something _ moving in the bushes. But Hector simply leaned back after little more than a second, immediately relaxing: "It's a rabbit." he declared.

Quirin raised his brow at him: "How do you know that?"

He only needed a knowing look by his brother to catch up: "Right. I forgot you live with animals. My apologies."

"Well, it's been a long time. Sixteen years now, isn't it?"

"Going on seventeen. You still look the same."

"You don't." Hector scoffed, " _ You _ look terrible."

"Might be stress." he sighed, "These past few days have been… unpleasant."

“I bet.”

Hector’s feline eyes were beginning to close.

“Hector?”

“Mh?”

“How long has it been since you slept?”

He sighed, leaning further back against the tree: “A few days at least.”

“Please sleep.”

“Someone has to keep an eye on you.”

“Yeah, I can do that.” Adira spoke up from where she lay. She sat up. Something was wrong with her. She looked maybe a shade paler than usual, her breath seemed to be off somehow, her hair was uncharacteristically mussed. There was a glint of blind terror in her indifferent eyes, smothered by the orange glow of the embers in their dying campfire. All the telltale signs of a nightmare.

No one slept that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am I going to keep making the two groups parallels? Yea probably tbh  
> MORE BONDING, YAY :D  
> And hey at least SOMEONE got some sleep (not me. I write at night :D)  
> And yes, I do occasionally reference the Sound of Music. Fight me.  
> Well, I'll see y'all Tuesday BYE-
> 
> -Cass


	10. The Forest of Skulls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: The skulls are not a metaphor.

"I don't mean to tell you how to get to  _ your _ place, but… are we sure this is the right way to go?"

Both of his siblings sighed, very quietly.

“Yes.” Hector confirmed, “For the last time, yes.”

Quirin gave the road a skeptical glance: “Alright. I just feel a little…”

A skull eyed him with empty sockets.

“...unsafe.”

“Eh, these are old.” his brother shrugged. 

“That’s still a lot of skulls.” he pointed out, “I have to wonder how they got here.” 

“Tradition.” Adira explained, “It’s a burial site of sorts.”

It still seemed like a suspicious number of skulls, in his opinion, considering the lack of variety in their states of decay. It was almost like they had all been placed there over the course of a year at most. More alarming still was the frankly ungodly amount of spider webs that covered them.

“How many times have you passed through here?” he asked.

“Maybe one or two.” said Hector, “I usually take the other road, but this is faster. Why?”

“Was that there last time?”

His eyes fell to a very strange skull. It was smaller than the others, distinctly not human, and disturbingly clean; an unnatural, pristine white. Its empty sockets seemed to be staring at them. It only got worse when Hector actually looked where he was pointing.

“No…” he mumbled, “No, it wasn’t.”

He walked closer to the skull to inspect it: “This is a cat. I’ve never seen animal bones around here.”

“And where’s the rest of its body?” Adira chimed in, “I don’t see any other bones around here.”

“No.” Quirin agreed, “This is weird.”

“It is. Last time I passed by here was maybe a week ago, and this definitely wasn’t there.”

“So where did it come from?” she wondered, quietly.

“I don’t think I want to know. I don't like how new some of these bones look.” 

"Great, so let's just move on then." was Hector's somewhat nervous suggestion. Unfortunately, there was a glaring problem with it. Namely, the massive webs that blocked the exit. 

Adira's hand ran to the hilt of her sword.

"Those weren't there before…" she murmured.

There was something inherently terrifying about waking up in the wrong place. And none of them knew anything about it anymore. Rapunzel used to. The first time she’d woken up outside of the tower had been disorienting to say the least. But after months on the road… not so much.

All this to say, it was unexpected when she felt that same feeling again.

All it took was waking up staring at a jagged, grey, stone wall three inches away from her face, instead of the brightly coloured walls she remembered, to throw her into a brief moment of panic. She nearly shoved herself into the (luckily cold) bed of the campfire, stopping only when she caught her elbow just as it fell with a thud into warm grey ashes. And probably bruised, if the familiar pins and needles in her forearm were any indication.

Turning her head, she came face to face with her tiniest friend.

“Hi.” she whispered, and Pascal barely had enough time to shoot her a suspicious glare before the rest of her party was also up and running. Either she had made more noise than she thought, or everyone was so on edge that the sound of a falling pin might have roused them. The two were not mutually exclusive, of course.

“What’s happening?”

“You okay?” 

She nodded at them: “It’s fine. I just tripped.”

“And fell into the fireplace?” Cassandra deadpanned. 

“There was no fire!” she protested.

“There could have been!”

She wasn’t wrong, but it was somewhat irritating how big a deal she was making it out to be. Still, she just smiled at her and waved her off: “I don’t think now’s a good time to worry about that. Look!” she pointed at the woods outside their impromptu hut, “The sun’s already up. I think we’d better get going if we want to catch up.”

Eugene was already up: “I’d say we slept long enough.” he agreed, biting down on a fruit he definitely didn’t have before. He had apparently settled for breakfast on the road, which was actually not a bad idea, if not for the fact that he would sometimes get sick when he ate while riding. He looked less energetic than the night before, despite having fallen asleep almost immediately, hours before the girls. That usually meant that he’d woken up early. But he’d been asleep when she’d woken up. 

The only sound conclusion was that he’d woken up in the middle of the night, disrupting his normal sleep schedule, and then fallen asleep again until morning. 

Not that she blamed him. He was clearly on edge. They all were. But still, it was somewhat suspicious and unusual on his part, as much as he was a light sleeper, to wake up in the middle of the night.

No matter.

“We better get moving.” he suggested, brushing his hand against her back in much appreciated support. His hand feels nice, comforting, but way too cold.

"Were you warm enough last night?" she asked him.

"Uh, yeah. Why?"

"Your hands are really cold…" she observed, rubbing her little fingers against his wrist, "That's unusual."

"I feel fine." he claimed, and she didn't insist. He looked sincere enough for her.

"We shouldn't be far behind!" Cassandra chimed in, currently at work feeding the horses some apples she definitely didn't have before. She was right. If they stood on top of the tallest tree there (and Rapunzel had, of course), they could just make out the massive crater that hosted the ruins of the Great Tree. But there was something very wrong with it. Massive black spikes stretched to the surface of the crater and, more importantly, a whole lake's worth of water rested in it. And where on earth had  _ that _ come from? 

She hoped she was wrong about the whole water thing, she hoped that maybe she couldn't see very well, maybe it was a mirage brought on by the morning heat. 

It was not.

Miles away, an endless dream played out in the silent depths of a black lake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a little filler-y but!! There is!! important info here :)  
> I got nothing else to say, too tired for that  
> Mmmmgonna nap now, cya later alligators 
> 
> -Cass


	11. Tangled Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're severely arachnophobic you might wanna sit this one out

In all his many,  _ many _ years out on the field, he had never seen such nonsense.

In many years spent in the forest, in that  _ exact _ forest, he had never, ever, run into what could only be defined as a  _ giant carnivorous spider _ , but here they were. Oh. Joy.

In all fairness, there was only one, but it was weird that he'd never seen it before. 

Hector swung his blade at the spider in a way that was more threatening than physically aggressive. He wasn't entirely sure it was a good idea to enter a fight against it. Spiders (especially the particular species it seemed to belong to) were notoriously among the least aggressive animals one could run into, if left alone.

This one, though, clearly had a precedent.

Still, an animal’s an animal.

“Don’t attack.” he warned his siblings, but his eyes fell to Adira immediately. Because if there was one person who wouldn’t listen, he was looking at her. Surprisingly, she  _ did _ listen. She lowered her sword just a bit, without putting it away. Interesting. He briefly wondered how much she was willing to trust his (admittedly, sometimes questionable) judgement; unfortunately, he had bigger problems to deal with. About a metre bigger than him and with twice as many limbs, to be precise. 

The spider stalked close to him, hissing aggressively in his direction, specifically. It appeared to be ignoring his significantly less threatening siblings, for the time being. Good.

Hector truly thought he had seen the weirdest part of that day.

Until the spider talked.

“ _ Wh-ooo… aaahre… you...uu? _ ”

Okay, so it was more like a hiss than words, but it was still not the type of sound a spider usually made. If he had to guess, he would say it was because a spider’s mandibles were simply not made for the intricacy of the English language. The guy didn’t have a tongue. Or teeth.

Caught in his scientific reflections, he realized a little too late that none of them had answered the giant spider’s question. In all fairness, that was not how they’d expected the day to go.

“ _ Wh...hoooo? _ ” it hissed once again. Its mandibles clicked menacingly, but it made no sign of wanting to get closer. 

“My name is Hector.” he answered, “I’ve been here before. Why have I never seen you?”

“ _ Ssss… lhh… eeph…” _

“Sleep?” Quirin guessed, “Were you sleeping?”

It hissed louder. A sound that somehow conveyed agony. 

“ _ Yyyyeesssss…“ _

“What woke you up?” Adira asked.

“Might’ve been the cat.” Hector suggested, very quietly.

“ _ Ssss… o...thhinh… fffffellh…” _

“Something fell.” Quirin translated, “Around here. You heard that?”

“ _ Yh… esss. _ ” it ducked its head under its front legs, almost pitifully so, and made a sound that may have been the spider equivalent of weeping, “ _ Thhh… tch… tch… _ ”

It was like it was trying to reproduce a sound not made for its mandibles. R, or G, or maybe D. It gave up, eventually: “ _ Ev’ythhinh...“ _

It tapped one of its front legs against a rotting sapling nearby, half eaten by parasites.

“Everything… died.” Adira guessed, “We saw that.”

The spider made a weeping sound once again, resting its enormous belly on the grass below. It really was pitiful. The poor creature was behaving more like a giant eight-legged puppy than the dangerous predator it was undoubtedly built out to be.

Hector forgot his blade entirely. 

“That’s what we’re trying to fix.” he explained, “We know who it was.”

The spider’s eight beady eyes blinked up at him with a curious spark. It was almost cute. 

“We’re heading that way.” he pointed behind the spider, “If you’d let us.”

It sprang to its hooked feet. 

“ _ Yessssss… _ ” 

It moved out of the way. It leaned its head down near Hector.

_ Like I said. _

_ Giant puppy _ .

He gave its head a small scratch. The spider seemed very happy.

Hector left with a stronger conviction of animals’ superiority over humans than he’d ever held before.

“You will pet anything that breathes, won’t you?”

Adira was just teasing, of course, but she meant it just a little bit. It was simply too good to pass up. The spider had let them leave at the small price of a head scratch. Priceless.

She caught Quirin’s lip tugging up a bit in the corner of her vision, but he had the sense to stay out of it. 

“I’m not afraid of big animals.” Hector scoffed, “Unlike  _ someone _ . Who will not be named.”

“It was one time.”

“It was enough times.” 

“I mean, it’s been more than thirty years now.” Quirin attempted to compromise, but his comment went completely ignored.

“I have this funny feeling that one day, when you pet the wrong thing, it will bite your hand off.” warned Adira.

“That’s not funny.” said Hector.

“It’s a little funny.” she murmured.

“It doesn’t matter. We’re here.”

Quirin was in the back of the line. He pointed ahead of them. 

Hector stepped forward and voiced what was on all their minds.

“What the hell happened here?”

Apparently Zhan Tiri had developed a taste for swimming. In lieu of where the Great Tree had stood, there was nothing but an enormous crater, made entirely of black rocks and filled to the brim with water. No, the water itself was black. It was so dark that it was impossible to see anything beneath the surface. Hector  _ was _ going to test it out; fortunately stopped by his significantly less impulsive older brother.

“You don’t know what’s in there.” he pointed out.

Adira conducted a much safer test by sinking a stick in the water. It disappeared into pure darkness no more than a few feet under the surface.

“It’s like liquid darkness.” she commented.

“Sounds about right.” said someone behind them.

To say that Hector and Adira were quick to draw their swords would be the understatement of the century, provided that no one said anything like  _ it has been a stressful few days _ . Which  _ had _ been said, in all fairness.

Their effort was for naught, really, because the only thing they found in front of them was one Eugene Fitzherbert, who was notoriously unphased by things such as swords pointed at his face.

“Woah, it’s just me. Haven’t seen you two in a while.” he smirked, then waved awkwardly behind the two in question: “Hi Quirin.”

The poor man waved back out of instinct more than anything. 

“What are you doing here?” Adira asked him, but at least put her sword away. The same could not be said for her very suspicious younger brother. 

“We’re here to help.”

“ _ We _ ?” Hector repeated, but they all knew who he was referring to even before she stepped out of the bushes.

“Hi…” Rapunzel waved with the most nervous grin they’d ever seen.

Cassandra plucked a leaf out of her tangled hair.

“Hey Short Hair. I thought we agreed you shouldn’t come along?” Adira greeted, “What changed your mind?”

“Mostly, them.” Cassandra answered, pointing at her friends with both hands, “Besides, I agreed to go home. I didn’t agree I’d never come back.”

It was a fair point, but her words didn’t pack their usual punch. She was nervous. 

Quirin just sighed softly. He couldn’t exactly argue with that logic. 

“We’re here to help.” Rapunzel chimed in, chipper as always and just as awkward. Hector was glaring daggers at her, which no doubt made things more difficult for the poor princess.

In fact, Quirin noticed, both his siblings looked very, very suspiciously at the group. The silence was awkward, the air was heavy, and he had to do something about it before it got to him and made things worse.

“Alright.” he just said.

“What?” 

Everyone replied in unison. It was almost impressive.

“We could use some help, I suppose.”

“ _ Help _ ?” Hector parroted.

“Remember the blizzard? Because I remember it.”

Hector bit his lip, but didn’t retort. It may have been a little bitter on his part, but Quirin didn’t feel too bad about it. There was something he wasn’t telling him, but now was not the time.

Besides, the Princess looked overjoyed. 

She also looked like she was going to say something.

Until a flash of gold sparked at the roots of her hair. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will never stop defending spiders. If y'all want a tiny bitey creature to hate on, wasps are right there. :(  
> Catch me being annoyed at movie animals talking with their mouth instead of magic. 
> 
> So yeah, the gang is back together and Hector is still not a people person :D  
> Hooray :D  
> So from next chapter the split POV finally ends   
> That is all, see you Tuesday and imma go grab another painkiller
> 
> Leave a comment :3
> 
> -Cass


	12. Limbo

It was safe to say that every single person (and animal) present had witnessed Rapunzel’s powers before. To say that they didn’t have a heart attack when it randomly flashed like that, though, would be a lie.

The lake fell silent as they all attempted to collect their wits. 

They didn’t have time to. 

Rapunzel’s hair burst violently out of its restraints, scattering red beads all over the clearing and bringing the sun itself down to grace the surface of the Earth: her blonde locks floated about her head in shining rays of gold, blindingly radiant and warm like the breezes of June. 

Its sun-like shape lasted but a moment. 

Her hair spiralled up into a nearly straight column directly above her head and plunged into the lake. It was by simple chance that her boyfriend was close enough to stop her from being dragged into its dark waters herself. The Princess yelled in pain when he tried to drag her back. The strain on her neck was evident. She managed to grab her hair and relieve the pressure, but it just wouldn’t give.

It shone brighter and brighter.

“It wants me to go in!” she yelled, her teeth clenched with effort. She turned her head to the young man holding her back. “Let me go.” she wheezed, “Let me go. I know why it wants me to go there. Let go."

"You don't know what's in there!" Eugene protested, keeping one arm wrapped around her waist while the other grasped the solid body of a black spike.

"Yes, I do!!" she cried. "I'm really sorry about this." she added, quietly.

And she used her free arm to elbow him in the stomach.

They all barely had time to realize what she was doing before she plunged into the black depths of the lake.

The water was warm. 

That was the first unexpected thing. It was warm, pleasantly so, the perfect temperature that made her feel almost drowsy, cozy, like she could sink into the lake and take a nap under a dark, watery blanket.

The second unexpected thing was that she could actually see. Adira had called the water  _ liquid darkness _ , and the comparison was spot on: as soon as the Sundrop's light surrounded her, she could see the murky depths of the lake.

The third unexpected thing was that she could  _ breathe. _ Actually breathe. So it wasn't really water, it was more akin to a zero gravity area. It still felt wet against her skin, though.

The thing she  _ did _ expect, though, was right there in front of her. 

A faint blue pulse on the other side of the lake.

She brought her arms forward and swam, as fast as she could. The water  _ was _ comfortable, but uncomfortably so; she felt like she could fall asleep at any moment and frankly, her position was way too precarious to afford a nap. Everything about that place was uncomfortably sweet and cozy and it felt so safe that it felt dangerous. It was, in a word, uncanny.

The blue light pulsed gently, almost invitingly, and her glowing hair tugged in its direction with an impatience that no inanimate object could have.

"I'm going, I'm going..." she mumbled with a strange feeling of pettiness towards her own hair. She swam.

The silence of the lake filled her ears, so deep that she could almost hear her own heart beat, slower and slower still, as the water relaxed her tense arms, her sore neck, her trembling hands… no. She couldn't afford to relax. For all she knew, it could all become real water in a matter of seconds, and then she would surely drown. The water slipped between her fingers and when she tried to look up at the surface, she only saw a dark curtain above her. It worried her a little. What if that meant that her party couldn't see her anymore, not even with her hair still shining like that? Would they be worried? Would someone jump in? They had no way to know she could breathe.

_ Later _ , she thought, and swam faster.

She didn't find the Moonstone or Zhan Tiri in that lake. Only a sleeping boy, laying on a bed of dark moss like he belonged there, and nowhere else. He didn't. He belonged on the surface, under the light of the sun and the moon, talking and laughing and moving because he wasn't _ supposed  _ to be still like that.

That strange blue strand in his hair was the source of the pulsing blue light that had lured her there. As soon as her fingertips brushed against Varian's cheek, though, both her hair and his gave one final, bright flash before reverting back to their normal colour.

Though the unearthly glow of their respective gems was not yet completely gone, they were officially in the dark.

As it turned out, Rapunzel had some serious upper body strength. And lower body strength. She was just very strong, really, with several years of using climbing as her main method of transportation; which would have been fine, but not for Eugene at that moment. He was currently doubled over at the edge of the lake, wheezing and sputtering while Quirin tried to get him to sit down and rest. Cassandra and (surprisingly) Hector were busy trying to figure out what was going on inside the liquid darkness that was the water there. There was still a faint golden light shining from its depths, which was certainly reassuring, but did nothing to calm Cassandra down.

"Why can't I go in??" she yelled, stomping her foot on the surface of the lake like a child throwing a tantrum.

"Clearly, the lake doesn't want you to." said Adira, standing calmly on the rocks a few feet away. Hector was pacing the edge of the water, bold enough to step into the water, but too cautious of the lake's nature to go any further.

"Maybe I can-" Eugene spoke up, but was cut off by a hacking cough. He was sitting against the rock now, somehow. He turned to Quirin with a pleading look, but the man shook his head: "I doubt it. Even if you could, you're in no condition to swim. Here…" he pointed at his chest, more or less at the spot Rapunzel had hit, "...this is your diaphragm. You're going to be coughing for a while. You might drown long before you even get to her. I'm sorry." he added, seeing his face.

"So what now?" said Hector. No one could answer him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See, I keep my promises sometimes :D  
> Can I get an F in chat for Eugene's diaphragm?
> 
> Also, here's a hot take: ZHAN TIRI HAS DREAM POWERS AND WE SHOULD WRITE ABOUT IT  
> Hot take over, see you Friday loves <3
> 
> -Cass


	13. Sleep

Varian didn't open his eyes immediately. It took a little bit of pleading and a little bit of moving him around (to no avail, as he seemed to be stuck to the moss beneath him), but eventually he did open his eyes. His big blue eyes, barely visible in the darkness, which had never looked so sleepy to her.

He didn't say anything, safe for a meek little "Mmh?"

"Varian."

"Mh? W…" he rubbed his eyes, sitting up as though he hadn't been stuck to the ground a minute prior, "Wha…?"

He yawned, seemingly ready to go back to sleep (she didn't blame him, in all honesty, with how comfortable the ambiance was), but she gently held his wrists: "Varian. Wake up. Are you okay?"

"Mmmmyeah. Sleepy." he mumbled. His eyes finally gave a spark of recognition and his speech wasn't as slurred when he talked again: "Rapunzel? Where'd y' come from? What are you doing in my house?"

There was a beat of silence as he looked past her shoulder.

"This is not my house." he concluded, and the last traces of drowsiness vanished into confusion, then panic, then nothing. He slumped into her arms and didn't speak again.

Unfortunately, she had bigger problems. Namely, the water ( _ real water _ , she realized) that was beginning to cascade from the surface of the lake and was sure to drown them both should they linger too much. She held Varian against her and gave a strong  _ push _ with her feet against the bottom of the lake. Then it was a matter of swimming as fast as she could while carrying the alchemist, and she had learned to swim. She had to. She hadn't been the best swimmer when she'd first left the tower; the idea of a second instance of what she lovingly referred to as the  _ cave incident _ terrified her and, while she certainly couldn't be prepared to be stuck inside a cave again, she could at least train her breath and her swimming skills to delay a potential drowning as much as possible. 

Her lungs burned. The water had submerged them completely. Her ears ached but thankfully, they weren’t deep enough for the water to do much real damage. She pinched her nose and blew into it to make up for the pressure. 

A terrible thought made her shiver, mere feet away from the surface: what if didn't break? The surface looked so solid. What if it was a trap for her, and they were both going to drown an inch below help, salvation, light?

She could've cried when she finally breathed again.

As it turned out, none of them could fully sink into the water. However, to varying degrees, they could sink partially in and still, the so-called  _ water _ had the consistency of molasses to them.

Eugene got in to his calves, Cassandra to her waist, Pascal to his neck (although that wasn't too hard to reach), Adira and Quirin to their knees and Hector to his chest. Why, they had no idea. As it stood, though, none of them could actually reach Rapunzel and whatever she had found there.

It only got worse when they couldn't see the golden glow of her hair anymore.

"Where is she? Where is she??" Cassandra stuttered, in a panic.

"Still down there, it seems." said Adira, in an unnervingly matter-of-fact tone. Which did no favours whatsoever for Cassandra's nerves.

" _ I can tell!!" _ she hissed. She was waist-deep in the water near the center of the lake.

Eugene felt sick. He didn't know whether it was the physical gut punch or the metaphorical gut punch, or both, but his knees felt too weak to stand. Not that Quirin would have let him, he suspected. He probably wasn't even aware of the death grip he had on Eugene's shoulder, clearly a remnant of his warrior days rather than his family man days. He didn't say anything, and neither did Quirin, but his bruising grip didn't last as long as it could've, because someone (something?) broke the surface of the water mere feet away from where Cassandra stood, causing her to stumble back a little.

He didn't see her. But he heard her.

"Raps!" 

Moments later, both Hector and Adira yelled for Quirin's attention, and that was when he knew why she had thrown herself into the lake. 

She gasped for air, flinging her left arm up to the sky (and to Cassandra's helping hand), but her right was clenched tightly around a young boy's waist. She scrambled to reach Cassandra's hand, but they were still all waist deep in water, and Cassandra could only hold so much weight.

Hector didn't speak to her, but he got there first. Without a word, he lifted the unconscious boy onto his shoulder, allowing the girls to slowly move towards the beach. The Princess sputtered and coughed, all but collapsing against her friend: “I c- we could b… breathe. And t-talk!” she babbled, splashing murky black water everywhere. Her teeth chattered violently. More importantly, though, Varian’s didn’t.

_ Never a good sign _ , Hector noted, sincerely hoping the boy was neither possessed, nor frozen, nor drowned. One of those, at least, was out, since he could feel a slow and steady breath on his neck. He would go so far as to say that he wasn’t possessed either, because the cold glow of the moon was completely gone from his features, and why on Earth would Zhan Tiri let go of the Moonstone so soon? He took that time to look at him better, now that he knew who he was. To his surprise, though he was clearly no longer the holder of the Moonstone, and his hair had faded to black, one streak was still blue. Only one streak on his forehead. Suspicious. Shelf it for later. 

There would have been a problem climbing out of a lake when he was in up to his chest and with a kid on his shoulder, if not for the fact that Quirin lifted the boy as soon as he was close enough. Not that he blamed him. 

He hovered around his brother while he checked on the child: pulse, check; breath, check; normal body temperature, everything was fine, so why wasn’t he waking up? The Princess was still awake, though (according to Adira) her heart was going haywire and she was half-frozen from her dip in the lake.

They discussed it later, much later, when they had all dried themselves off and the Princess had stopped shivering. She was currently nestled in her boyfriend’s arms (after an awkwardly long string of apologies for messing up his diaphragm earlier), leaning her head against his shoulder.

“It wasn’t water.” she started, and everyone’s heads turned. “It wasn’t…  _ actually _ water. It was warm, the perfect temperature. And we could breathe, and talk.”

“How is that possible?” wondered Cassandra.

“We’re dealing with a demon here. It’s not the strangest thing she can do, probably.” Adira pointed out, “What was down there?”

“Darkness.” Rapunzel replied, snuggling a little closer, “You described it as  _ liquid darkness _ . I’d say that’s pretty accurate. I was in there and I was… I was getting very sleepy, somehow. It was like it was lulling me to sleep.”

Everyone’s eyes subtly, but not too subtly, turned to the sleeping boy she had pulled out of the lake.

“I found Varian on the other side of the lake.” she explained, “He was sleeping. I woke him up and he was confused, he thought he was at home. And then…”

She paused for a moment. 

“He realized he wasn’t at home. Then he fell asleep again, and that’s when… well, um… the water started to become…  _ real _ water. The kind where you can’t breathe. I swam up and got us out.” she concluded.

“Are you feeling better now?” Eugene asked her, and she only smiled in response. She frowned for a moment: “I felt so cold when I got out.”

“You  _ were _ cold. Way too cold.” Cassandra confirmed. 

“So what you’re saying is, that place was designed to put people to sleep.” Hector theorized.

She shrugged. “Probably.” she said, “It was comfortable. Way too comfortable.”

He was about to suggest they simply wait out the effects of the lake’s hypnosis, but apparently there was no need.

Varian gasped awake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Catch me being unable to watch scenes where people go in deep, DEEP water and the pressure isn't a problem because I did almost five years of free diving and it don't work like that :/  
> Here's Varian :D  
> Is he ok?  
> I don't know.  
> I mean, I know, but you don't :)  
> Bye darlings, see ya Tuesday (although I'm seriously considering upping the schedule to three times a week now that my other long fic is done.
> 
> -Cass


	14. Wake

“Mom?” was the first word he said, and wasn't that a punch in the gut in every possible way (including literal, since he’d started awake and Quirin was within hitting range); still, he elected to ignore it in favour of looking the kid in the eyes and trying to figure out if he was all there. Vain hope. 

He had time to look back and say: “Oh hi, Dad.” 

Then he fell asleep again.

There were several beats of silence. No one had had time to so much as talk to the kid, and now he was asleep in his dad's arms once again.

Hector was, rather unsurprisingly, the first to somewhat collect himself: "What the hell?"

"This is worse than I thought…" Adira remarked, softly.

It really was. What were they even meant to take away from that?

“He’ll wake up again, eventually. The water’s still wearing off. I think.”

Oh, Hector sounded very uncertain. Not the best sign. It usually meant he had very little to no basis for the claim he was making. He was an opinionated person by nature; therefore, if  _ he _ had no idea, neither did anyone else. Wonderful. 

He closed his arms around his son just a little tighter. He wished he could know what was going on; more than that, he wished he could just go home.

The pattern continued.

Every twenty minutes or so, Varian would wake up for a few seconds and fall asleep as soon as he acknowledged his surroundings. Eventually, they put two and two together. Well, not exactly, it was more like putting together the corner pieces of a puzzle (a start, but not a complete picture); they concluded that Varian had probably been in there for days and the effect would take much longer to wear off. Their hypothesis was not reassuring in the slightest, though, because it had taken Rapunzel hours to recover from no more than ten minutes spent inside the lake. If he really had spent days (or even hours) in there, who could say how long it would take for him to recover.

“We have to speed this up.” Quirin concluded, and no one disagreed. The only problem was that they had absolutely no idea how to  _ speed it up _ . Well, maybe they had  _ one _ idea.

“This is magic, isn’t it?” Cassandra piped up, more or less out of nowhere. 

They all nodded. Most shot her an interrogative look that said something along along the lines of  _ you just realized that? _

“So?” Hector voiced what was on everyone’s mind.

She gestured to the exit of the cave they’d settled in: “ _ So _ we find someone who knows magic. There must be a magician somewhere who knows what this is, right?”

“It could work.” Rapunzel nodded, “Does anyone know someone like that? Preferably in our general vicinity?”

There was a beat of silence.

“We could ask around.” Adira suggested, “There’s a town just on the other side of this cave system. If we left tomorrow morning we should be there by sunset. Worst case scenario, they don’t have any mages around but they definitely have an inn.”

The rest of the group made various noises of agreement.

“Have you been through this system before, though?” Hector questioned.

“I have. Would I suggest navigating a cave system no one knows?”

“I wouldn’t put it past y-”

Quirin cleared his throat and the conversation ended there. 

He woke up twenty-three times that night. By the last, he remembered where he was.

“You’ll be here when I wake up?” he asked, very quietly. Quirin cupped his cheek, scratching lightly around his temple: “I will.”

“Okay.” he nodded, “I trust you. You’re not a dream?”

“I’m not a dream, son.”

“Okay, good. No one here is a dream. Who’s here?”

“Everyone you see.”

The boy nodded. 

“Varian?”

“Yeah?”

“What did you see? In the lake.”

He leaned a little closer to his dad. There was a moment of silence as he collected himself.

“I don’t know what I saw.” he admitted, “It was my room, but it was different. There was a blue curtain. And a book on my nightstand. Not my books. Books of fables.”

“Mh.”

“And someone was singing.”

“Who was singing?”

“I didn’t recognize her.”

“ _ Her _ ?”

“I think it was a  _ her _ .” Varian nodded.

“What was she singing?”

“Um…” 

The boy stopped to think. He hummed a very familiar tune. 

Quirin nodded. Of course.

“Varian, did you lie?”

“What?”

“You said you didn’t recognize her. Do you know what you said when you woke up?” he asked. Varian paused. He seemed to scour his memory for what he’d said and found nothing. So there  _ was  _ some kind of memory loss involved in whatever spell that was.

“What did I say?” he finally asked.

Quirin smiled sadly: “You said  _ Mom _ .”

Varian blinked.

“Oh, that makes sense…” he yawned. Then he was asleep again.

They had decided that someone should keep an eye on the kid before he hit his head on the rocks. That turned out to be an incredibly good idea when his intervals of consciousness began to get longer and longer. Throughout the night, they went from twenty seconds to almost three minutes. No one but Quirin found that out until the morning, though. Neither of them brought up whatever they’d talked about and nobody asked.

Adira explained what she knew about the cave system. In essence, there were two possible paths. The cave started out broad and relatively safe and narrowed significantly when it split in two. 

“We’ll take the left path.” she declared, “It’s a lot faster. The right path leads all the way to the other side and takes about a day more than the left.”

“Left it is!” chirped Rapunzel, and they turned to the darkness of the cave.

_ “Will you be back tomorrow?” the girl asked. _

_ “Of course.” smiled the woman, “Bright and early. Is that alright with you, love?” _

_ She nodded.  _

_ The woman turned to the door, but she stopped her: “One last thing, though.” _

_ “Yes, dear?” _

_ The girl sank into her pillow. She had a wise air to her that the woman had always found strange, but endearing. _

_ “Tomorrow…” she started, and the woman knew to listen, “Before you come to see me, stop at the market. The one at the entrance of town.” _

_ “Then what?” _

_ “Then wait.” _

_ “For what?” _

_ “You’ll know when you see it.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I ended up deciding to keep the schedule three chapters a week for the time being. Idk if it'll last tbh but… :,)  
> Enjoy this chapter!!  
> And angst. Again. Looks like we're gonna find sum magic people :)
> 
> Cya Tuesday loves
> 
> -Cass


	15. Split

The caves were dark, big surprise. They’d managed to gather a decent amount of torches, which meant they would have to pair off if they wanted them to last all day. 

Adira led the way with a map she apparently had (and might have mentioned earlier, as Hector lovingly pointed out), while Eugene held a torch for her. They weren’t exactly making small talk, it was more like Eugene stringing together an endless rant about this or that while their guide just nodded along and let him talk his heart out. Silent plus nervous talker was apparently a good team.

Hector and Cassandra had a much different dynamic, more equal but inconstant, going from a long discussion (usually about weapons and fighting techniques) to complete silence on a whim. And it was  _ working _ , somehow. No one heard them talk it out about the whole  _ Great Tree _ incident, but there was a certain part of their dialogue that had been carried out too quietly to be heard, so who could say?

There was a reason they’d paired off so strangely. Several, but the main reason was that Rapunzel adamantly refused to stray too far from Varian, which in turn led to Hector and Adira refusing to pair up, which led to them being instead paired with Eugene (possibly the most neutral person there) and Cassandra (who would not spend a whole day next to Adira to save her life) and the rest was history.

The most surprising thing by far, though, was that Rapunzel and Quirin were not saying a single word. Neither of them. Of course, it would have been less surprising if any of them could have seen the giant neon sign saying  _ we only talked when Varian was in danger and it makes for awkward conversation _ that hung above their head, but they could not, in fact, see that sign. 

It would be about an hour before they arrived at the split in the path and they’d been walking for five more when Rapunzel gave a violent shudder.

“Are you alright?” Quirin asked, very quietly.

She nodded. “I’m just tired. I don’t think that lake did me any good.”

“Do you want to rest?”

“I-”

“It’s okay. We can sit down for a few minutes.”

She paused for a moment. 

“Later.” she decided, “When we get to the split I’ll rest for a bit. Just so we have a point of reference. I don’t want Adira to lose her concentration…”

He nodded. That was actually a good decision, so he wasn’t going to push his luck. But talking had apparently put the Princess in a conversation mood and she was now making small talk. He went along with it. It wouldn’t kill either of them to talk about how to grow sunflowers properly. She said she liked sunflowers a lot.

There was something on her mind. He didn’t know what. All he knew was that there was a question she wanted to ask but it was apparently too awkward. Feeling the conversation hardly had any potential to be  _ more _ awkward, he asked: “Is there anything you wanted to ask me?”

She only denied it for a moment.

“Yes.” she admitted, “I just… I just wanted to know how long you’ve known my dad.”

_ Oh. _

“But I um… I know you’re not on the best terms right now, but I just wanted to ask.”

“It’s not…” he sighed, “It’s not exactly like that. I’m not… angry at Frederic. I  _ am  _ extremely disappointed, though."

"Do you feel like…" she lowered her voice to a whisper: "...like you can't really trust him anymore? Not as much as before. Like he's crossed a line?" 

He sighed.

"Maybe. I don't know. I haven't thought about it." he lied, "It doesn’t matter right now. About your question, it was over twenty years ago. Twenty-two, I think.”

“That’s before I was born.”

“Yes. I saw you back when you were a baby. I was staying in the capital for a while at the time.”

She seemed amused by the idea that someone aside from her parents had seen her as a baby. Like it made her feel a little better about her place at court. 

“I was also there after... “

Her smile faded. Understandably. Her voice was scarcely above a whisper when she spoke again: “I hear Dad was…”

“He was. I’d say we grew a little closer.”

“Well, at least there’s that!” she chuckled, humorlessly. So the conversation  _ could _ get more awkward. Fantastic. There was some more silence after that, quite a bit more. About twenty minutes of silence, to be exact. Safe for a few words when Varian woke up again, neither of them said anything for twenty minutes, which was quite a bit of time when there was literally nothing to do but walk and make conversation. But there was  _ still _ something on her mind.

“Is there anything else you’d like to know?” he prompted.

She seemed embarrassed. “Yes.” she admitted, very,  _ very _ quietly. He nodded,  _ go on _ , and she twisted her hands nervously.

“I didn’t want to ask Varian about this…” she said, “I mean, I meant to, but I wasn’t sure where he stood on it. Or if he’d forgiven me.” she added in a whisper.

“He has.”

"He has?"

"Yes. I seem to remember he defended you adamantly last time someone was antagonizing you." he pointed out. There was no need to mention Cassandra. She knew. Something indecipherable passed over her face: pride and shame, joy and worry, recollection and carelessness, all at once.

"I'm glad." she finally said.

He felt Varian's breath hitch against his neck.

"You don't owe us." he blurted out, completely out of context.

"What?"

"You don't owe us." he repeated, "In case you think that. There is no score to settle here. I'm grateful for everything you've done for Varian in the past months, but you don't owe either of us, and neither of us blames you. You might need to hear that."

She hugged her shoulders. An almost certain sign that she  _ did  _ need to hear that.

"Thank you." she said, "For not holding a grudge. And um, about my father… he feels bad. He just has some trouble with apologies."

He knew that. Boy, did he know that. It  _ did _ feel nice to hear it from a reliable source, though, so he just nodded.

"What is it you wanted to ask?"

“Well, like I said, I  _ was _ going to ask Varian, but… well, I haven’t exactly had the opportunity to ask him.” she observed, and he couldn’t argue with that. She fell silent again, for a few moments. “But in light of… recent events…”

“You can ask me.”

She looked up at him sheepishly: "What… what happened to his mother?"

He smiled sadly.

"I wish I knew."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, THE ENTIRE AFTERNOON: Hm, I feel like I'm forgetting something. Oh well, imma go take a nap. Make tea. Do homework. Stuff.
> 
> Me at 6:10 Post Bloody Meridian: I FORGOT TO UPDATE-
> 
> I'm very sorry.   
> I'm also sorry to always leave you guys on a cliffhanger but like...a little less sorry. :3
> 
> -Cass


	16. Collapse

“You don’t know?”

He shook his head. She didn’t ask any further question, but there was no point in keeping quiet at that point.

“Her name was Enya.” he started, “She was sweet. And thirteen years ago, she just… vanished. I don’t- I mean…” he paused, “I don’t know.”

He sighed. Nevermind then. It seemed he’d lost the capacity to talk about her, because talking about her and her disappearance meant admitting that he’d never been able to find her.

Silence it was, then.

The next hour was spent in complete silence, small talk forgotten and nothing else to speak of. Rapunzel started humming at one point. Varian woke up briefly, asked how long they would be, and then fell asleep on his back again. Aside from that, the only noises were the crackling of the torches and quiet conversation from the rest of the group. 

Then the path began to narrow.

Adira really could have told them what she meant by  _ narrow  _ sooner. At least for the first few yards of that left path, the larger members of the group would definitely have to squeeze a bit. Which meant there was also no way he, the most imposing person there, could carry Varian through himself, which meant their only two options were waiting for him to wake up for a few minutes or let someone a little more minute carry him through. But they had time to think. Rapunzel sat down, as she’d said she would, and most of the group silently followed suit. Quirin realized that the spot next to the Princess was probably the most suitable to put an unconscious kid, due to the conspicuous absence of jagged rocks around it. 

He placed him down carefully. Eugene still held his torch, sitting next to them. 

“I could carry him.” he offered, no context needed. Quirin silently agreed with a nod of his head and joined his siblings just inside the left path (he had to squeeze in, but he wasn't going to let them explore on their own) before they could find an excuse for a passive-aggressive argument. 

Hector merely threw a jab at their sister for not telling them about the tiny passage, though, to which she responded accordingly and then fell silent. They had seemingly exhausted their spirit of argument for the time being, which was better than he could ask for and hopefully meant they were starting to see eye to eye again. Well, sometimes. They’d never seen eye to eye all the time, because no two siblings did, but at that point he’d settle for a genuine compliment on either side. 

The blissful silence didn't last too long. This time, Quirin wasn't even sure how the argument had started, probably because it was too petty for his brain to process. At least they were keeping it passive-aggressive, but the veil of their patience was thinning out. 

He was just about to intervene when the Earth shook around them. A deep rumble made the rocks shift and moan and, before they knew it, it was dark.

The passage caved in behind them.

Hector coughed. That was the first sound he heard. The second was a shifting of pebbles somewhere. The third was a groan of pain and effort.

It was too dark to see. He fumbled around, looking for  _ something _ : a torch, his siblings, his son, anyone really, as long as it let them regroup faster. What he found instead was a wall of jagged rocks.

On the other side, the Princess gasped loudly.

"Is everyone okay?" she cried out. Two voices and a chitter answered her.

"Quirin? Adira? Hector? Are you alright?" she called again. Clearly, she couldn't see them. Which meant they'd been separated. 

"Hello?" Cassandra yelled.

"We're here." he yelled back. Then, turning to the darkness behind him, he called for his siblings. Hector answered. Adira took a moment longer.

"I'm stuck." they heard her groan, much closer to the cave in than the two of them. Quirin fumbled around in the dark until he found her arm. Probably.

"Is that you?"

She confirmed. 

"I need light."

"Here." said Hector, striking the stone wall. He somehow managed to relight their only torch, casting light on Adira. She wasn't completely crushed, that was the good news. The bad news was that there was a particularly big stone keeping her leg stuck to the ground. He didn't need to find a solution. Hector was faster.

"I've got this." he said, unsheathing the blade on his arm. Before he could ask what he was doing, he'd stuck it under the offending stone and, using a smaller rock as a fulcrum, he was lifting it by a few inches.

Adira wasted no time crawling out, with some help, and dragged herself against a safer spot on the wall as Hector finally dropped the stone.

She nodded at him.

Well, it wasn't an explicit  _ thank you _ , but it would do.

Another voice came through the wall: "Whass that noise?"

A very sleepy Varian, because timing was so on their side that day. It took him little more than three seconds to piece it together.

"Dad?" he called, with a note of panic in his voice that he hadn't heard in a long time and didn't care to hear again.

"I'm here." he replied in a hurry, "I'm fine. We're alright. Is everyone okay there?"

"The rocks didn't touch us." Cassandra answered, "We're all okay."

"Good."

"Well, I don't mean to be  _ that _ guy, but it looks like we'll have to split up." Hector, as always, said what was on everyone's mind. There really was no choice.

"We should go ahead." Adira suggested, pulling herself up to test her leg, "Meet you at the village. It'll only be a day. We can probably afford that much."

She glanced at Quirin for confirmation, which he half-heartedly gave. There wasn't much else to do. He couldn't use her leg as an excuse to linger, either, because it was clearly not injured. Attempting to remove the rubble could cause a second cave in, and they'd been lucky enough the first time. And Varian was in good hands, he reminded himself: every person standing on the other side of that wall had at some point rescued or cared for him and they were more than capable of doing so for just one more day.

"You're right." he sighed, "It's our best option."

"We could move the rubble." Cassandra suggested, and Adira wasted no time in correcting her.

"Not unless you want to bring the rest of this cave down on our heads. It seems the split has weakened the whole system. The rest of the path should be fine."

"I don't know about this…" Varian mumbled, but he knew she was right. 

And so it was decided. 

Minutes later, they officially split up.

_ The girl patted her lap. A black cat jumped up, digging its claws into her gown. _

_ "I need you to find a man with green eyes." _

_ The cat meowed. _

_ "Don't give me that look. You'll know it when you see him. He's got this drawn on his hand, see?" she smirked, tapping her finger onto a drawing.  _

_ The cat gave her a look. _

_ She sighed: "Of course you get a treat. I'm not  _ that _ evil. Spoiled cat." she added, quietly. _

_ Content, the cat nuzzled its head against her arm and jumped out of her lap to find the man with green eyes. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops I split them up again.   
> At least everyone's ok for now, right? :)  
> Apparently I have also gained the habit of putting adorable animals in these past few chapters, because I am a cat/bird/ snake/ fish/ frog person.
> 
> That is all :3  
> -Cass


	17. The Witch of Weissenbrück

Varian was surprisingly talkative that day. If it  _ was _ day. They wouldn’t know: they were in a cave.

“So if you have to make soap just remember to add the caustic soda to the water and not the water to the caustic soda.  _ Ever _ . It has a violent reaction.” he explained for the third time. It was thoughtful, as unnecessary as it was, so they let him ramble on. His discourse was little more than a vocalized stream of consciousness, on account of him  _ losing _ said consciousness every five minutes; it didn’t make for great conversation, in all honesty. 

“Thanks Varian, we’ll remember that.” Eugene nodded.

“Okay, good.” said the alchemist, before slumping back onto his shoulders, “Don’t want you to explode stuff.” he mumbled.

“We won’t.” Cassandra assured him. Then he fell asleep.

It was weird, talking to him. At that moment, it really was like talking to a toddler. A very intelligent toddler.

"Well, I didn't think I'd be taking chemistry classes while walking through a cave, but I guess that's just how it goes when you're friends with this kid." commented Eugene. 

The girls silently agreed with him.

Rapunzel took a moment to look around. The caves, which had been rather nondescript up until the split, were beginning to get more populated. She caught a glimpse of a fluorescent bug of some kind tucking into its nest; the walls of the cave glistened with crystals and minerals, which poked their little heads out from under the grey and white rocks; there was some kind of plant growing on the floor beside her, too. She wondered why. If she had to guess, she would say it was because no one ever really passed through that side of the caves, therefore leaving its flora and fauna intact. A smile crept on her face as a phosphorescent moth flew around her head, probably attracted by the torch Cassandra held.

"It's so beautiful in here." said the Princess, with a skip in her step.

"Yup." the other two agreed, in unison.

"Just wait until Varian wakes up." Eugene sighed, "He's going to lose it."

"Mh. If only he could stay awake for more than five minutes to document it." Cassandra murmured.

"Eh, he'll find a way." he shrugged, "Seriously, never underestimate this kid's capacity to take notes. I saw him writing on his apron once."

Rapunzel chuckled. Of course he would.

She felt something in her chest tighten when she looked at the boy's sleeping face. What it was, exactly, she couldn't tell. Probably the same instinct that had driven her to finally take Eugene's suggestion and go look for him, no matter how much another part of her brain screamed that it was none of her business and she couldn't be everywhere at once.

She was done ignoring that instinct.

“How big is this village on the other side?”

Adira took a moment to respond. "Pretty big." she shrugged, "I'd go so far as to call it a town. But it's not very densely populated. Just large."

"Should we split up?" Quirin wondered. Was it a dangerous area? Could they all be trusted on their own?

"Well, at least one of us has to stay near the exit of the other cave, right?" 

"No." Adira shook her head, "It's not  _ that _ big. They will probably find us easily. We're either going to be with a mage or at the inn."

"You're making it sound easier than it is." Hector grumbled, "We can't just sit around and wait for them."

"True." Quirin agreed, and he didn't miss the smug sidelong glance Hector gave their sister. She returned the look with one of indifference, and he stopped, eliciting a sigh from their extremely tired older brother.

"We should get Varian to the mage as quickly as possible." the latter continued, "We don't know if the lake did more damage than we can see. We don't know what's going on with him."

"Then one of us goes to the cave. Then what?" asked Adira, "I think we should split up and find the mage first, and  _ then _ meet up at the cave's exit. We would cover more ground."

"Also true." Quirin admitted, "That might be wiser. If we find them fast enough, we won't need to leave someone on guard at all."

After a moment of consideration, the other two seemed to agree.

They were out in the open sooner than expected, because apparently they walked faster when they were on their own and didn't have to drag two drowsy kids around. Who'd have thought?

The so-called  _ village _ was definitely a town. They could see rows of little houses evolving into rows of bigger houses and buildings as they stretched further and further west. It would definitely take them at least a few hours to explore it, and it would take all day if they didn't split up.

Adira shrugged and went off left, through the marketplace: "Meet you here in three hours."

Quirin waved awkwardly as she left. He turned to his brother.

"So… do you want to take the main road?" Hector suggested, "I'll take the outskirts over there."

"Sounds good."

Once again, they split up.

It didn’t take very long for any of them to find out they were in the wrong place.

“ _ Shhh _ !! Do you want people to hear you??” hissed the first person Quirin stopped to ask about a mage.

“Pardon?”

“There are no mages around here.” the man whispered, “No, sir. I don’t know where you’re from, but witches are good as dead ‘round these parts.”

“Oh.”

Well, just their luck to end up in the one place in the kingdom that outlawed magic and witchcraft then. They had just lost an entire day.

The old man looked at him with a certain pity in his eyes. 

“Well, there may be  _ one _ .” he relented, “If you need help. I’m not supposed to tell you that, but to tell you the truth… I’ve been here for seventy-five years and I have never witnessed an actual witch do actual damage. The only one that’s still around is a very helpful young lady, actually. Does little favours for villagers as long as they don’t turn her in to the guards. She cured my granddaughter last year.”

Maybe they could arrange that. 

“Where does she live?” he asked.

The old man cleared his throat awkwardly: “Well, no one really knows that. She usually just shows up.”

“Just like that?”

“Yes, they do say her specialty is divination. Rumour has it that she knows when someone needs her help.” he explained. The man, much shorter than Quirin, patted his arm in support: “You just keep walking around. If she doesn’t appear by the end of the day, come back here and I’ll try to help. Heaven knows, we need all the help we can get.”

“What do you mean?”

The temperature in the shade of the old man’s shop seemed to drop.

“There’s something going around.” the man murmured, “People go to sleep and  _ stay _ asleep.”

“Are they-”

“No, no. Merely asleep. If you do find the witch, ask her how her spell is coming along.”

They parted ways with a heavy heart. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Iss gettin spooky in here. Yes I know it's May, no, I don't care. I am ALWAYS in the Halloween spirit :)  
> Weissenbrück is apparently a real place but I chose the name before that based on my (limited) knowledge of German because mom says I should practice more. So there :3  
> Varian's improvised chemistry class is also based on my experience making soap with my science teacher, who told us that you should never add water to a caustic soda in that order.  
>  That is all u.u
> 
> -Cass


	18. The Witch's Web

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for several mentions of death but no one actually dies don't worry

Hector was having no luck whatsoever in the outskirts of town. There was hardly anyone around, for starters, and those that were around were no help. The nicest people he’d found told him they just didn’t know and the rudest laughed in his face. Because of course there were no mages around, they had a bad tendency to burn them alive around there, and how did he not know that? Oh, yeah. Because he’d never been there or even heard of the damn place before. More importantly, how come Adira didn’t know? That magic ban thing sounded like something old and important and thus something she should have known if she really  _ had  _ been there before.

And another thing, another disturbing thing he might add, was the sheer amount of unconscious people he could see through the windows of those huts. At least, he  _ hoped _ they were unconscious. There was colour on their cheeks, their chest moved slowly up and down, but the other people in the room were crying in despair. Why they would cry like that for someone clearly in the bloom of their health, he didn’t know or care to ask about, but it certainly wasn’t helping the general mood of the town.

He was distracted from that thought almost immediately when he felt something brush against his leg. Something fluffy. He looked down to find a beautiful black cat. Its fur looked like someone had swathed it in a blanket made of the night sky, and the green flecks in its golden eyes twinkled in the sunlight. There was something promisingly magical about this cat, he decided, although he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. The cat brushed against his leg again and then ran to the end of the street. 

And then it stopped to look at Hector.

In his eyes, the cat was making it very clear that it wouldn’t move until he followed. And so he did.

Elsewhere, Adira was starting to regret not leaving the market to her infinitely more mundanely adept older brother. It was loud, and colourful, and full of different smells, and she was simply not used to that kind of place.

Several merchants tried to get her attention, but they didn’t look like the kind of people who would know where to find a mage. None of them had anything even remotely magical, and they certainly didn’t look any more healthy and beautiful than in other towns (and, for that matter, neither did some of their products). 

It didn’t take her long to find out why. 

“A  _ mage _ ?” the merchant scoffed, “Around here? Good luck.”

“I take it there aren’t any then.”

“Well, there were.” she sighed, distractedly shining one of the knives she sold, “But they all either left or died after the governor started burning them alive. Poor chaps.”

She shook her head: “This ain’t the best place to look for a mage, love. Unless you wanna chase a legend?”

“A legend?” asked Adira.

“Yes, a legend. That…” the lady laughed, gesturing carelessly with the knife, “...is what I call a legend. The Witch of Weissenbrück. My mother used to warn me about her, but between you and me… I’ve never seen the girl. Not after they tried to execute her, anyway. Strange day, that was.”

“Why, what happened?”

“Well, they had the lass ready to go, right?” she started, placing down the knife in favour of a box of arrowheads, “Tied to the stake an’ everything. Then she turns to the executioner and goes  _ I guess you’ve never seen a real witch before _ or something like that, and then the wood burned up in seconds, but it didn’t touch her. Got rid of the ropes real quick, though. And then she walked away.”

“So you  _ have  _ seen her.”

“Well, yes.” the knife-seller admitted, “But she’s not stupid. Why would she stay here after that?”

“Mh.” Adira nodded in agreement, “I understand. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. You still want that knife or was that an excuse?”

“No, I do want that knife.”

The rest of the market was nowhere near as helpful as the knife-seller, and it had been two hours already. Adira was just about ready to go back.

“Fish for sale!”

“Bread!! Fresh out of the oven, ladies and gentlemen, get it while it’s warm!”

“How much for this?”

“A beautiful scarf for a beautiful lady…”

“Only three francs.”

“Excuse me!” someone said, but it got lost in the sea of people and noise that was the market.

“Excuse me!” they repeated. She turned around. A lady in a blue dress stood behind her, and she looked very,  _ very _ familiar. But from where, she didn’t know. It was a little suspicious.

“Yes?”

“This is going to sound very strange, but…” the lady took a half-step back to keep a more respectful distance, “May I please see your hand?”

Scratch that, that was extremely suspicious. “Why?” she asked.

The woman laughed nervously: “That came out wrong. Uh, I may be going out on a limb here, but… are you Adira?”

The old man had told Quirin to walk around, but there was really not much to do around that town. Oh, they were living just fine. There was just not much on the tourism front.

He sighed. There was something very irritating about a supposedly helpful witch that couldn’t be found; although, he reminded himself, that was probably to avoid being murdered. Which was fair.

He spotted someone then, tucking into a smaller road. He wasn’t quite sure why this particular person had caught his eye, but he found himself following them. He got up to the entrance of the other road before he even questioned it. 

He took a few steps in before he even stopped.

And then someone spoke up behind him: “Quirin, right? We don’t get many people from the Dark Kingdom around here. What gives?”

He turned around. A girl waved at him: “Hey there.”

“Who are you?”

“Well, I heard a rumour you were looking for a witch.” she smiled.

He looked her up and down. She was around the same age as Varian, probably. Blonde curls tickled her freckled cheeks, escaping the confinements of the brown hood that covered her head. Maybe she knew the witch.

“I am.” he admitted.

The girl smiled.

“Well, you’ve found her.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my :)) it seems our heroes have found our witch  
> Or, more accurately, she has found them.  
> The kitty is back!!! And will be names in the next chapter, I believe.  
> This is turning into "let Adira make regrettable decisions 2k20" and I don't know how I feel about that but who else was going to be this chill?  
> This chapter got really long in editing so the last part went to the next chapter because I gotta pace myself a little bit
> 
> see ya Friday, if I'm still alive  
> -Cass


	19. Green

Quirin noticed her limp. Now that he saw her, he realized that the girl wasn’t as healthy as he’d initially assumed. Her arms were bony and pale when she waved at him, she favoured her right leg and she had taken the first chance she could to lean against the wall. 

“Are you alright?” he asked her.

“Mh? Oh yeah.” she laughed, “The energy spell should last me a few more hours. You, though, you have an appointment. We should probably go back to the meeting spot.”

That much was true. He had little more than half an hour to go back to the meeting spot and he’d rather not be late. The girl walked quietly beside him, her hood still pulled over her head.

“I didn’t catch your name.” he realized. 

She shrugged: “I didn’t throw it. But, nice to meet you. Name’s Elsie. Or just  _ you damned witch _ , I’ve heard that one more than the other. There is-” she paused, “Oh, damn it."

He didn't get a chance to ask her what was wrong before she was roughly yanked back by the wrist. 

A woman in black held her in a vice grip: "You!"

Elsie sighed: "Not you again-" but couldn't say anything else before the woman violently pulled her towards her once again.

"So that's where you've been hiding, you hellspawn." she hissed. Quirin had to assume she knew her. And probably knew she was a witch. What she seemed to be ignoring was that she was also a child, a fact he was painfully reminded of when Elsie mumbled: "You're hurting me."

The woman ignored her. She was in her forties, bearing the marks of grief on her still young face, in her posture, in the dark colour of her dress and in the veil that draped off her black hat. "You're not going to escape this time, you little demon. I'll make sure of that."

The third tug on the witch's too thin wrist was the wakeup call he needed to step in front of the woman.

"Madam, I'm sure you've mistaken her for someone else." he started, raising his arms in an appeasing stance.

She didn't take it well: "Oh, I would know this face anywhere. Move aside, sir. You don't know the extent this madwoman will go to."

He felt a spark of irritation at hearing her speak that way to what was by all means a teenager.

"Firstly, I'd hardly call her a woman."

"True." Elsie backed him up, "I'm not even eighteen yet, dude."

"Secondly, I'm sure you're mistaken because this is my niece." he lied, praying the witch would go along with it, "And I must ask you to let go of her arm."

The woman hesitated. He caught the young witch whispering something as soon as her head was turned. The moment she looked back at her, the woman cried out in surprise, releasing her immediately. 

"Oh, goodness. I'm so sorry." she whispered, turning back to him, "I  _ have _ mistaken her for someone else. Please, forgive me. She just looks so much like that witch…" 

"I assure you, Vivian is no witch." he lied, once again, and he caught Elsie snickering under her breath. "I would know, she can hardly read, much less read from a spellbook."

The woman laughed nervously: "Of course! Forgive me, my dear." she apologized, nodding at the girl.

Then she excused herself, as quickly as she could, and they left with the wind at their heels.

"Who was she?" he asked the witch in a somewhat irritated whisper.

"I'll explain later."

"She knew you."

“Yep. She's the one who turned me in last time.”

“Why was she in mourning?”

"It's a long story. But I'm innocent." she huffed, picking up her pace. Deciding it would do no good to expose her further while they were in the middle of the town, he followed her. Wary, but not accusing.

It took him about two minutes to realize they were going the wrong way.

“Where are we going?” he asked, “The meeting spot is that way.”

“Mh? Oh no, we’re all going to my place. I need my spellbook.” she answered, calmly.

“But-”

“Don’t worry. Your siblings will be there too.” she shrugged, “I sent my friends to lead them there.”

“They’re not the type to follow strangers.”

“Neither are you.” she pointed out.

She wasn’t wrong.

"Thanks for the help, by the way." she added, quietly, "And  _ Vivian _ ? Could you be more obvious?"

She laughed, and he had to assume she knew about Varian like she knew about literally everything else, apparently.

He nodded. 

In a matter of minutes, they reached the witch's house.

Well, her house was hardly a house. She stopped in front of a tall and wide oak tree and then leaned against it, calmly. It was, admittedly, a big tree, but he couldn’t see any indication of an entrance no matter how hard he looked. Then again, it was a witch’s house. A witch who was doing her best to stay hidden, no less.

“We’re here.” she simply said.

Seeing his questioning look, she added: “We have to wait for your siblings. I don’t think anyone else will show up in the meantime, they’re afraid of this part of the forest. On account of me living in it.”

He didn’t have time to reply. A cat meowed somewhere.

“Ah, here they come!” the witch smiled. Moments later, a black cat scuttled in from behind a bush and jumped up on her shoulders. And then Hector walked out from behind the exact same bush.

The witch waved at him, but didn’t look at him, too busy scratching behind the cat’s ear: “There you are. Two down, one to go.”

The cat meowed wistfully and she sighed: “Yes, yes, give me a second. Spoiled cat.”

She reached into her pocket, pulled something from a small jar, and held a shrimp up to the kitty’s face, which it gladly accepted and ate in less than a second.

Hector shot his older brother an interrogative look, which he returned with a shrug. Because, honestly, he had no idea. He cleared his throat: “Is… that your familiar?” he asked the young witch.

“Oh, no.” she shook her head, “That would imply he can turn into a human. Nah, Merlin’s just a cat. A very  _ spoiled  _ cat.”

Merlin meowed in protest, which she completely ignored: “He’s my roommate.”

“Oh.”

Hector spoke up: “So you’re a witch.”

She looked up at him, distractedly: “Yea-” 

Her eyes widened. Something had caught her attention.

“Oh damn, what happened to you?” she scoffed, raising her brow in what might have been either concern or wonder. In their case, it was a blaring alarm.

“What… what do you mean?” asked Quirin, whose priorities just couldn’t stop shifting that day. The beast gnawed at his gut and he ignored it, as always. He examined his brother's figure, but he couldn't find anything on him that may elicit such a reaction on the part of the witch that had apparently kept her cool at her own execution. His wound was barely visible and nothing else would suggest that Hector was in pain. Not even his eyes.

She gave them a pitying look: “You can't see it. It's a magic thing."

"What? What is it?"

"I mean, I could show you… it ain’t pretty.”

“What are you seeing?” he asked. 

“Bad news.” she replied, "That's what I'm seeing."

She lifted her hand to Hector’s arm and a spark of green lit at her fingertips. The spark burst into a flame, lighting all around the man, sickly green and bright, surrounding him like a thick fog and making him look almost ghostly. The biggest cloud was around his eyes. It was gone as quickly as it had appeared, though, and left Hector gasping for air.

“What the hell was that?” he hissed, digging his nails into his palm. Quirin couldn’t blame him, but gestured for him to open his hand anyway.

The witch sighed. 

“Everyone’s got a trace.” she explained, “Everyone who’s been touched by magic, at least. Magic leaves a trace, especially primal magic like the Sundrop and the Moonstone, and I'm sure you know that. Now, you've both got traces of those too, don’t get me wrong, but  _ that _ …” she pointed at Hector, “ _ That _ just screams Zhan Tiri loud and clear, and not a passing touch. To have a trace like that, you have to get up close and personal with magic. And I’m pretty sure it’s there for a reason.”

“I…” the man didn’t answer immediately. “I uh… came into contact with the heart of the Great Tree, but-”

“No, you misunderstood.” she interrupted, “That might be where the trace came from, but there’s more or else it wouldn’t be this obvious. Or active.”

“Active?”

“Yeah. As in, Zhan Tiri is aware of it and is using it. This is very,  _ very _ active and it can very much influence you, and that is our problem right now. Actually, I’m pretty sure you’re being tracked through it.”

“ _ What _ ?” Hector yelled. He looked… worse. Somehow. And in no shape to carry on with a conversation. 

The witch grimaced: “I’m sorry.” she shrugged, earnestly apologetic, “I can remove the trace, and I should, but we’d better wait for everyone else in case they’ve been infected. Otherwise it’s just more work. In the meantime, don't go to sleep. Okay? No matter what, none of you should sleep."

“That’s fine.” Quirin said, “That’s fine. Would you give us a minute?” he asked, leading Hector away with all the subtlety he could muster. 

Elsie nodded: “Go on.”

They got out of earshot. She sat cross-legged between the roots of the tree.

“And… hmm…” she murmured, “I guess the other two got held up. Probably had a chat.”   
  


She was right, but they didn’t know that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah so this is a little filler-y but that's mostly because it's full of setup :/  
> And to the people who told me not to angst Hector… I am almost sorry. I'm glad you couldn't see my face when I read your comments because it would have been a spoiler :,)  
> Catch me making up the parts of the magic system that you can't see in the show-  
> And, ya kno, stuff you can't see in the show in general :,)
> 
> That is all, bye kiddos!!!
> 
> -Cass


	20. Don't Sleep.

By the time night fell (and the only reason they knew it was night was that Varian apparently carried a pocket watch,  _ for scientific purposes _ , he declared), they apparently had about five more hours to walk and no one was up for that. The only one who had any semblance of energy, surprisingly, was Varian, whose intervals of consciousness had gone up to about ten minutes and who intended to make good use of them.

"I'm not tired." he shrugged, when Cassandra suggested a break. The looks he received shut him up immediately, but the atmosphere shifted on the drop of a dime when Rapunzel laughed. He smiled awkwardly at the broken tension in the cave. The Princess could only hope she was conveying light-heartedness and not mockery in her laugh.

"Yeah well, I'm not carrying you any longer." grumbled Eugene, understandably sore from having the kid on his back for most of the day.

"We can't all sleep, though." said Cassandra, though she held back a yawn a second later, "Someone has to watch Varian."

"I can do that." Rapunzel offered, "It's not a problem. I had a nap yesterday. Plus, you guys look really tired."

Neither of them put up much of a fight, because she was absolutely correct in that assumption. They  _ were _ tired. Especially Cassandra, who hadn't slept too much the nights before either. Eugene still had  _ something _ going on, she was sure, but as for what it was, her guess was good as any. He always had cold hands in the morning, but they warmed up over the course of the day and were overall not too noticeable for someone who hadn't spent mornings holding them. Too bad Rapunzel had.

To sum up, they were  _ tired _ . A fact easily proven when it took less than five minutes for both of them to fall into a deep and peaceful sleep.

And that was how she found herself having a hushed conversation with Varian at, according to his watch, around 2am.

"Why are you here?" he asked, completely out of the blue and completely out of context, and she didn't have an answer; safe for another question, and that question was "What?"

"Here. With me. And you saved me from that lake and... whatever else happened while I was asleep." he clarified.

"Why wouldn't I?"

"I don't know." he shrugged, and it didn't look sincere in the slightest.

"Varian…" she said, and it was a clear warning.

He relented. Almost shamefully, he turned his head away and murmured: "Because I… I don't know. I feel like we're friends, but… not. I mean…"

He sighed.

"You can tell me, Varian." she murmured. She hoped it came off as encouraging but honestly, she had no idea. He might take her insistence the wrong way.

"I can't explain it." he said, and it didn't sound entirely honest, "I mean, I can, but… it's going to sound kinda… mean? Or… not? I don't know. Have we  _ ever  _ talked like this?"

She smiled. 

"Once, as I recall."

His eyes sparked with remembrance: "In the prisons."

"Yeah."

"And that solved some stuff."

"It sure did."

"So I should be honest with you."

"Brutally honest." she smiled. He didn't look convinced. 

"I don't know if you want  _ that _ ." he scoffed, "But I can be politely honest."

It was an acceptable compromise. She nodded for him to continue.

"I just… mh, this is not as easy as I thought it would be." he laughed, nervously, "Okay, here I go. It sounds stupid."

"Just tell me."

"I…" he bit his lip, "I didn't think you cared." 

He said it so quietly, and so simply, but it didn't need to be any more complicated than that. They both knew what he was referring to. They both had a lot of things to work through. They both knew there was no better time than the present. And she knew she had to be as honest as he was being. So she was honest.

"You know, Varian… a year ago, you would've been right. If a year ago you'd told me that I would be willing to do anything to protect you, I wouldn't have believed you." she admitted, scooting just a little closer to him, "Now, though? Now that I've had a chance to know you, to know the  _ real _ you? I  _ do _ care about you."

His eyes were wide and somewhat sleepy. He was reaching his limit of consciousness.

She extended her arm behind his back. He fell onto her shoulder, encircling her waist with his arms, and his eyes closed.

"I care about you too." he mumbled.

Then he was asleep again. She ran her fingers through his hair with a smile and, minutes later, she followed suit.

“How do you know my name?” Adira asked, warily, and the woman looked nervous.

“I just… I heard someone describe you. A few times. And you kinda stand out, what with the outfit… and the hair… and you're really tall… not the point. Point is, you stand out. Like, a lot. I’m rambling, aren’t I?”

She nodded, but the woman pressed on before she could sass her: “This is going to sound  _ very _ weird, but someone told me where to find you. Sort of. She just said I’d find something here, but I’m pretty sure she meant you. Because you're the only strange thing I've seen all day. Not that you're a thing. Or too strange. Just… foreign? Does that work?"

Adira raised her brow. Okay, so... this lady was looking extremely suspicious, granted, but she sounded surprisingly genuine for someone spouting utter nonsense. What, was there a clairvoyant around? Maybe a mage? First things first, though: “And who are you?”

The lady straightened the folds of her deep blue gown. Adira took the opportunity to observe her better: she carried a basket, but it was covered by a cloth so she couldn't tell what was in it; she wore a necklace of some sort, but she couldn't see its pendant because it was buried inside her shirt; her left sleeve had a stain of green paint on it that she clearly hadn't noticed. She still looked really, really familiar. Yes, now that she looked at her better, she had most definitely seen this lady before. Maybe she wasn’t a local? 

She realized it about a second before the lady actually answered.

She was definitely older, with strands of white starting at the roots of her braided hair, and she was no longer dressed in red, nor pregnant, but it was her.

“My name is Enya.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Technically, they never SAID she was dead, did they?  
> …I'll see myself out. But first…
> 
> HUGS ARE IMPORTANT  
> LET THEM HUG.
> 
> That is all
> 
> -Cass


	21. The Lady in Blue

"How long?" was the first thing Hector managed to say, and he couldn't exactly blame him: "How long has she been tracking me?"

“I don’t know.” Quirin answered, sincerely. He really didn’t. It could have been at any point in time over the course of almost fifty years; since his first nightmare, or the Great Tree incident or maybe, if they were lucky, since his unfortunate run in with Varian. It could have been since his early childhood or a week earlier and they would never find out. Or maybe they would, depending on how much the witch actually knew, but did it really matter?

“Hector, calm down. She said she can fix it.” he reminded him, and he hoped she wasn’t lying because that wouldn’t end well for anyone except maybe Zhan Tiri, which was the worst case scenario. Best case scenario, she was wrong about the strong influence of her magic and Hector was fine, but he wasn’t counting on it. They had both seen the trace. Something that impressive was bound to have consequences.

Hector seemed to be acutely aware of that, judging by the noise he made. He looked genuinely, unapologetically freaked out, and that may well be the most terrifying part of that situation, because he wasn’t usually the one who freaked out in the group.

“What if she can’t?” he asked, “What if I’ve been possessed? Or-”

“Don’t even say that.”

“What if  _ she _ 's possessed?"

"Okay, now you're just entering conspiracy theory territory."

"What if… I don’t know.” he sighed, defeated but still decidedly jittery. He sat down, finally silent and seemingly resigned, which was a worse sign than anything  _ else _ he’d done before. He genuinely looked like he had no idea what to do. Neither did Quirin, which was not good.

“Look, I know this is coming from  _ me _ , and it’s not a lot…” Quirin sighed, “But let’s try not to panic here. We’re lucky we found out.”

“Are we?”

“Yes. That means we can get a start on fixing it.”

For some reason, he didn’t look convinced. Quirin sincerely hoped he was coming across as honest as he was. 

“Do you trust that witch?” Hector asked. His tone was indecipherable, but, if he had to say, he would put it somewhere between  _ distrustful _ and  _ earnestly asking for his opinion _ .

He decided to be honest in return.

“I don’t know.” he said, “There’s something she’s not telling us. But she’s very young and she’s already being hunted…”

He trailed off. His frown deepened: “That can’t be easy to talk about.”

Hector stayed silent for a moment. “No,” he agreed, “It can’t.”

“Either way, what choice do we have? It might be weeks before we find another mage, and they would be no more familiar to us than she is. Some villagers seems to like her.” he reasoned.

“Maybe.” said Hector, “I’m just saying we should keep an eye out.”

Quirin nodded. “Are you ready to go back?” he asked.

“I’m fine.”

“Which means?”

“Which means five more minutes.”

The marketplace was just as noisy as before, but it fell on deaf ears. Adira looked the woman up and down.

“Enya.” she repeated. The name felt strange on her tongue. Forbidden, somehow, like a name that should only be whispered and never spoken in earnest. She hadn’t seen this woman in almost seventeen years, and Enya had never seen  _ her _ . 

“Yes. That’s my name.” she smiled, nervously, “And you haven’t answered my question.”

“I’ll end the suspense. I  _ am _ Adira. It’s good to meet you… officially.” 

Enya’s smile became more genuine. “Very good to meet you too. After all I’ve heard about you, I... “ she sighed, “I don’t know. This feels like meeting a mythical creature.”

Adira’s brow quirked in amusement as she quickly backtracked: “Uh- that came out wrong.”

“It’s fine. Just one thing.”

“Yes?” Enya reached for her braid to fix a loose strand of hair.

“Who sent you?”

“Oh!” 

Her eyes widened. She seemed to remember what she was there for all of a sudden: “Right. Could we talk somewhere more private?”

“Of course.”

She followed Enya to a bench some twenty feet away from the marketplace. She took the opportunity to examine her further. Her hair was a little mussed and the edge of her skirt was dusty. Clearly, she had been out for a while, and the full basket in her hands suggested as much. She still couldn’t get a read on her pendant, tucked safely away inside her shirt, but it wasn’t urgent. 

She ended her examination when Enya turned to her and dropped her chipper tone to a whisper.

“There’s a young girl in the woods.” she murmured, “A witch. Hiding in the woods to escape the ministers. And I’m helping her, however I can. She told me to come here, and I think she wants to meet you.”

Adira looked into her eyes and found no malice.

“Lead the way.” she said.

There was no sun in the caves, but Varian’s watch was at almost 11am. Honestly, Cassandra was a little surprised to be the first one up, especially so late. And without nightmares, for once. A brief rush of pride tugged at her lips as she sat up from her improvised pillow (aka, her bag) and leaned over to the closest person (aka, Eugene), giving his shoulder a less than gentle shove that sent him face down on the rocks.

The guy wasn’t impressed. He mostly just grumbled lazily, half awake and clearly trying to go back to sleep. “Leave me alone, Lance. It’s Sunday.” he mumbled.

Cassandra cocked her eyebrow. It was almost funny to see him so disoriented, but she didn’t have the time for that. 

“Wake up and pull your weight, Fitzherbert.” she admonished, kicking him square in the spine. Only enough to hurt. It wouldn’t even leave a bruise. Still, it woke him up alright; on the wrong side of the bed, perhaps, but it did the job just fine.

“Good morning to you.” he grumbled, after several less polite comments under his breath.

“Yeah. It’s 11am. I had to wake you up somehow.” she chuckled.

“Well, couldn’t Rapunzel do it? She’s got much better manners.”

“Figured I should let her sleep a little longer. Look.” she smiled, pointing at the sleeping Princess. And at the tiny alchemist curled up against her shoulder.

It took Eugene a moment to fully take in the sight. “Aw.” he commented, holding back a smile, “Look at those two. I think they finally had a chat.”

“About time.” sighed Cassandra.

There was a beat of silence.

“Should we wake her up?”

“Five more minutes.” he compromised, and she couldn’t argue with that.

They leaned back against the wall, watching the quiet rise and fall of their sleeping friends’ shoulders.

“I’ve missed this.” Eugene admitted, quietly. 

“Huh?”

“This. Talking to you. You kicking me without trying to break my ribs…”

“Who said I wasn’t?” she smirked, but there was no malice in it.

“Come on. I was down on the ground. If you’d wanted to cave my ribcage in, you could’ve.”

“Touché.”

They fell silent once more. 

“Well, that’s enough extra sleep.” she decided, “Go pick up Varian.”

“If we can get him.” he grinned, but stepped up to their absolutely adorable friends nonetheless. The moment he touched Varian’s arm, his smile fell.

“Something’s wrong.” he whispered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey remember that chapter titled "don't sleep"? Yeah, heed the titles :,)  
> Also, Varian was officially doomed to be awkward. By parentage alone. F.  
> Also also, I apologize to Hector fans. And Varian fans. And Rapunzel fans. Fans in general, really.
> 
> -Cass


	22. Remember, Remember.

Cassandra was at his side in a second: "What? What's wrong?"

"I don't know…"

They figured out what was wrong soon enough. Specifically, when they tried to wake Rapunzel and she didn’t move. 

They waited. Maybe it was the same thing as Varian’s curse, they figured. They waited ten, twenty, thirty minutes in the cave. Pascal scurried out of the bag he was sleeping in and tried his hand (or rather, tongue) at it. Neither of them woke up or even moved. Their hands were cold.

"I don't understand. I…" Cassandra stuttered, "I don't know what's going on with Raps, but- since when does Varian take so long to wake up?"

" _ That _ ’s your takeaway?  _ Rapunzel _ !!" he called out, shaking his girlfriend by the shoulders with maybe a little more desperation than he should have. Her head lolled back and forth. Her face seemed to be completely blank, but there was nothing particularly weird about it. Her cheeks were just as rosy as ever, sprinkled with freckles, and her lips still had their healthy red tint. Varian looked normal, too, not a trace of something unnatural in either of them, safe for the chill of their hands.

Cassandra made a decision then. Without a second thought, she hoisted Varian onto her shoulder.

"Get up." she commanded, "We have to regroup.  _ Now _ ."

Quirin was sure he was one of the victims of the sleeping curse. Why else would he be seeing Enya?

Enya, on her part, felt more or less the same way. 

Which caused them to stand there, completely dumbfounded, for a good twenty seconds before someone thought to speak up. And that someone was Elsie.

“Uh, guys? This is real. Just putting that out there. Please hug it out and end the suspense.” 

She was right, of course, that’s what they  _ wanted _ to do, but hearing that it was real didn’t make it any easier to accept it. Honestly, everything Elsie had said up to that point had been so weird, she may as well have been a malfunctioning valve in their sleeping consciousness.

Enya was, rather unsurprisingly, the first to make a move. Even less surprisingly, it was awkward. 

“I… uh… hi.” she said, and then immediately seemed to regret it. Good thing she missed Adira holding back a snort just behind her. When her greeting was met with silence, she turned to the young witch sitting under the tree: “Did you… did you do this?” she asked.

“Of course not.”

“So it’s a coincidence you told me to go to the market.”

“Of course not.”

The cogs spun behind Enya’s eyes for a moment before she finally asked the right question: “Did you know?”

The witch nodded. Then nodded to Quirin: “Seriously, guys. You have time. Talk it out.”

She stood up and plucked the basket from Enya’s hand, gesturing for the other two dumbfounded members of the Brotherhood to follow her. And so they did, with nary a glance behind.

The problem with one’s wife going missing for thirteen years was that they would stop expecting to find her. Much less alive and well. So if she _ was _ found, there were so many important questions to ask that choosing  _ one _ felt like a betrayal to the others no matter how important the question was, or how much time they had to ask it. But he had to start somewhere. He let all the unsaid things flow through his mind and let the first that would come be spoken. 

“I missed you.”

That seemed to tear down any barrier between them. She jumped at his neck without a second thought, lifting herself as high as she could, and sobbed with joy in his ear: “You’re real!” she gasped, “You’re here! I didn’t- I… I didn’t think I’d… see you again…” she admitted, her voice growing quieter and quieter with every word until she was just clinging silently to him.

The first question came to his mind. 

“Where have you been?” he asked, immediately suppressing any disgusting trace of distrust or anger in his voice. It was hard, but he was patient.  _ Thirteen years _ , something in his head repeated, over and over, ad nauseam. He felt her breath hitch in his ear and hoped it wasn’t a sob. It wasn’t. When she pulled back, her eyes were dry, but they weren’t fixed on him anymore.

“I... “ she stuttered, “It’s a long story. Sit down.”

They sat against the tree and her story began.

“You remember my  _ illness _ , right?” she asked, making air quotes around  _ illness.  _ He nodded. Of course he did. Moments when Enya’s lively brown eyes would gloss over and lose all signs of recognition. Moments when she would suddenly drop whatever she was holding and step back, frightened by the noise. For at least a year, the worst of the curse, she refused to hold anything that might be dangerous or breakable. Glass. Candles. Heavy objects. Varian.

“Well,” she continued, “We thought it had left. It hadn’t. I just… forgot where I was, and then… I think I wandered off. Far. When I remembered  _ who  _ I was, I didn’t know  _ where _ I was. And I could never find my way back. It took years of wandering. Every time I thought I was getting close, every time I recognized something familiar, I had another episode and I had to start from scratch.”

Her voice cracked. She was completely and utterly sincere. 

“In three years’ time, I found a town and stayed there for a while. And five years later, I found this town. And a little girl who’d just escaped her pyre.” her voice dropped to a whisper, “I hid her. For as long as I could. I wanted to get her out of town, but she’d been cursed to always remain within its walls.”

That was a punch in the gut, which both of them blatantly ignored.

“Eventually, she found a way to ensure no one would ever find her unless she wanted to be found, and she thanked me. She knew about my curse. She said she could lift it. As thanks, you know? But there was a condition that neither of us could do anything about.” she bit her lip, “Because that would leave a strong trace of her magic on me, I could not leave either.”

“And you accepted?”

He would never admit to feeling just a little betrayed. Not that he had any time to linger on it before she answered: “I debated it. For a long time. But it had been _eight_ _years_. I was scared. I didn’t know if I could get back to you, and with every episode my memory faltered a little more. I was scared that… even if I did manage to get back home, by that time… it wouldn’t be home. I was scared I’d forget everything. Every _one_. So I accepted. I didn't know if I could see any of my loved ones again, so I chose to at least remember them."

She hugged her knees to her chest: “So, there.”

Silence fell, heavy with thirteen years of unspoken words.

She spoke again, softly: “Tell me, though. How is everyone? How’s Varian? My father? The… rest of the town?” she gave a soft snort, probably in remembrance of several unpleasant disagreements with other village ladies over the most trivial things. Probably missing them. And probably not ready for the news he was about to give her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I explain things!! :DDD   
> Eventually.   
> I can't answer things in the comments but FEAR NOT, all will be answered eventually :3  
> If you recognize a reference in my stories it may VERY well be intentional, just sayin
> 
> -Cass


	23. The Witch's House

The witch’s house, they learned, was neither  _ near _ nor  _ on  _ the tree. It was  _ in _ the tree. Elsie casually walked to what looked like solid wood, only to walk right through it. The bark rippled at her touch as though it were nothing more than an illusion. She vanished inside the tree.

Hector lifted a finger, without touching the tree: “Did… she just…?”

“Walk through wood?” Adira completed, “Yep. I saw it too.”

Seemingly noticing she wasn’t being followed, the witch poked her head out: “Guys. You coming or…?”

Seeing their faces, she grinned: “Just walk through it. It’s that simple. It feels like water, I promise.”

She ducked back into her house and left them alone outside once again. Adira poked at the tree. Her hand went all the way through. “Huh.” was her only comment.

“I guess it  _ is _ that simple.”

“It feels nice. I’m going in.”

And in she went, from cold green of leaves and blue of sky to warm yellows and oranges, in a cozy candlelit room. There was a mass of blankets in the corner and a tiny crooked table on the right, and more shelves than any house should have, all lined with powders and liquids of strange and varied colours, more than half of which weren’t labeled. Elsie sat by a fire (which seemed unadvisable to say the least), sifting through the contents of the basket Enya had been carrying, which turned out to contain what looked like various roots, plants and a dagger. A very familiar dagger. It would seem that Enya had also visited the knife seller. 

“Welcome.” said the witch, without lifting her gaze from the basket, “You guys sit down and make yourselves comfortable. I gotta work on this sleeping curse cure I’ve been asked about.”

“Do you know what it is?” asked Adira, sitting cross-legged on the floor without needing to be asked twice. 

The witch grimaced. “Yeah.” she said, “This curse looks very green and smells like everything Lovecraft’s ever written.”

“Who’s Lovecraft?”

“No one you’ll ever need to worry about unless you’re secretly immortal.” she replied, peeling one of the roots and slicing it into a pot. The pot gave a flash of orange light. "Point is…" she continued, "This has Zhan Tiri written all over it."

“How does that work?” asked Hector.

“The potion, you mean?”

“Yes.”

She sighed: “Well, the good news is that this is pretty much certain to work. The bad news is, it’s extremely tedious.”

“Explain.” Adira prompted.

Elsie leaned back a little so her back was against the wall. “I gotta start from the beginning.” she said, “The very beginning. Basically, witches are usually specialized. I’m a clairvoyant.” she pointed at herself, “My sister’s an animorph. Zhan Tiri used to be a dreamwalker.”

“A dreamwalker.”

“She can enter people’s dreams. Sound familiar?”

Their faces were answer enough for her.

“A curse like this starts and spreads through dreams.” she explained, “So the only way to fight off a dreamwalker is… well, by dreamwalking.”

There was a beat of silence. 

“And that is tedious because…?” asked Adira.

Elsie sighed. 

“Because we have to cure every single person. Individually.”

“What?”

There was a lost look in Enya’s eyes. It wasn’t the same emptiness as the curse, which had left her looking completely extraneous. It was Enya, without a doubt, but there was a glaze over her eyes. He sighed sorrowfully.

“I’m sorry, Enya. Your father left us about three years after you disappeared.”

He had dreamt of finding her many times. Dreaded many things. But none more so than giving her that news. She stared straight ahead, completely lost.

“He…” Quirin sighed, “He never stopped looking for you. I’m sorry.”

She searched for his hand. Squeezed it tight. She was holding back tears, that much was clear. One spark of hope still lit her eyes: “Varian…” she babbled, “How is he? I… I had a candle, I dropped a candle, please, please tell me-” she choked a sob, “Tell me I didn’t start a fire. Tell me I didn’t  _ kill _ him. I-”

“Enya. Breathe.”

“I have to know!!”

Quirin pulled her into his arms and she clung to his shirt. “You didn’t kill him.” he murmured. He omitted the fact that she  _ had _ , in fact, started a fire. No one was hurt, so she didn’t need to know that.

“He’s… fine?”

He bit his lip: “He’s on his way here.”

Omitting information wasn’t a real lie, he told himself. She didn’t need that kind of weight so soon after the news of her father’s death. They still had a few hours before they could regroup. Enya held on even tighter in a sudden rush of panic: “ _ What _ ?” she hissed, “ _ Here _ ? What am I going to tell him?? Oh no-”

“Enya-”

“Does he even remember me? What am I gonna tell him?  _ Hi, you don’t know me but I’m your mother _ ?”

“Uh… essentially, yes.”

“How’s he gonna take that? I barely know him!! He couldn’t even pronounce the dog’s name the last time I saw him!”

“Enya-”

“What if he takes it badly?”

“Enya!!”

She bit her lip, pulling away from him with a strange, high-pitched, panicked sound. 

“Breathe.” he prompted, “Breathe deeply. It’s going to be fine.”

“I love you, but no. It’s not.” she frowned, “I wish Elsie would  _ tell _ me when she sees things like this coming. I need time to prepare.”

“Well, that’s just not true. Your motto is  _ I’ll wing it _ , if I remember correctly.”

Enya glared, then sighed in defeat: “Yeah. It is. How about,  _ you _ need time to prepare?”

“Less untrue. Look, Enya, we have time. Before we can regroup. You can say what's on your mind." he prompted.

She paused. Her eyes, still a bit wet with tears, wandered around the clearing and she visibly relaxed at the hummingbird's song. She breathed deeply. Shelved all sorrow for later. And then smiled at him: "Will you marry me again?"

There was a beat of silence.

Then they both burst out laughing.

"You can't keep all the proposals for yourself, Enya!" he scolded, and she laughed louder.

"It's not  _ my _ fault you take too long." she protested, "And you're taking just as long to answer! Again!" 

He squeezed her hand.

"The answer's still the same."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I just imply that Enya proposed the FIRST time? Yes. I did. I regret nothing, don't @ me.  
> Did I also just imply that Elsie can see AND smell magic? She can hear it and feel it too. Don't @ me.
> 
> Cya :3
> 
> -Cass


	24. Stream of Consciousness

As it turned out,  _ every person individually _ meant every single infected villager, one at a time, which by that point amounted to a few dozen. Fantastic.

Elsie was currently hard at work distilling the very first batch of this mysterious potion, which would apparently allow them to enter people's dreams and snap them out of it.

_ They probably don't even know they're dreaming _ , she'd told them, and that wasn't good news because how could someone be convinced they were dreaming all along?

That was why Elsie had recommended the procedure be carried out by someone close to the affected people, who would know what buttons to push. There was an obvious problem with that. Namely, that none of them knew the affected people in question, which meant…

“I have to go public for the first time in five years.” Elsie sighed, clearly not looking forward to it. And who could blame her?

“Are you sure you want to do that?” asked Adira. The way she saw it, it was a legitimate question. She was about 90% sure it wouldn’t end well for the kid, and it would be best to avoid whatever that meant, if possible. 

The witch shrugged. “They didn’t get me last time.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.” Hector pointed out, “Maybe you got lucky. There are a lot of people out there.”

“I’ve got allies.” she smirked.

The two shot her an interrogative look. She gave the pot another stir: “You’d be surprised how many biases can be put aside with one little favor. Very few people out there are stubborn enough to be dangerous.”

“So how did they arrest you last time?” Adira asked, calmly. The witch froze for just a second. Then she sighed. 

“Well-”

She didn’t have time to say anything else. Enya poked her head in, closely followed by her husband. She looked… very distressed. Adira could have sworn she saw something glistening in her reddened eyes. She also noticed that her pendant was gone; the chain hung empty around her neck, but a ring glistened on her finger. Quirin’s ring also seemed to have mysteriously returned. 

Elsie welcomed them back with a wave of her hand, returning her attention to the boiling liquid in the pot. Adira wasn’t willing to let it slide, though: “Well, don’t let them interrupt you. You were saying?”

The witch and the lady in blue exchanged a look. Enya seemed to grasp the question, and she didn’t like it: “Oh, it’s not… she’s a little…”

“It’s fine.” Elsie shrugged, “Short version is, lady in town asked me to meet her for a favor I owed her and then threw a rock at my head and I woke up in a cell. Happy?”

No one was. It was a suddenly uncomfortable place to be, sitting next to a teenager who had just calmly admitted to having had her head bashed in by a villager. And who would soon be out, in full view of the exact same villager. Merlin, who had been lounging on a somehow empty spot on a shelf, jumped down to the back of her chair, resting his head on her shoulder. Adira wasn’t entirely convinced that he wasn’t a familiar. Regardless, Elsie gave his head a brief scratch before standing up (still carrying a cat on her back with a certain nonchalance for someone so tiny) and pouring the contents of the pot into seven vials. 

“Here we go.” she said, slipping three vials into her pocket and distributing the rest to the others, “Keep those safe."

Adira examined her share of the potion. It had a burnt orange colour, like amber in the liquid form, and there was a glow to it. Sort of. It was more like a strange glisten out the corner of her eye, where the light wasn’t hitting the vial.

“So how does this work?” she asked.

Elsie made the vials clink in her pocket: “Whoever’s going in drinks this. Just a drop, really. But I have to bind them to whoever they’re  _ visiting _ .”

“Bind them?”

“With magic. It’s weird.”

“Oh.”

She pulled her brown cloak over her shoulders, staring at the door with a completely indecipherable expression. An unlikely mix of anticipation and dread. 

Then she walked out.

“ _ Seriously _ ??” 

Eugene sighed heavily. Cassandra’s frustration was, for once, extremely relatable.

Specifically, her frustration over the huge hole in the ground ahead of them. The path had opened into a bona fide cave and the huge, awfully spiky walls of the ravine were sure to destroy anyone who had the misfortune of falling in it. No wonder no one used that path. Inconvenience aside, it was a danger to public health and safety. 

“How did this even get here?” she rambled, holding her hand out to it as if he couldn’t spot it without her help.

“I dunno, maybe with this being a cave system and all we should probably expect some bumps in the road.” he deadpanned. He shook his head. Something was off with him that day. Possibly his comatose girlfriend sitting on his shoulders. 

Cassandra set Varian down on the ground, at a safe distance from the ravine, and paced the room: “We don’t have time for this!! I can’t- dammit, I just got back and I’m already here. In the middle of this. I should have known to expect a mess, but this?? How was I supposed to know?”

“You weren’t!” Eugene snapped, “ _ No one _ is expecting you to understand what’s going on. Now are we gonna jump or not?”

He piped down as soon as he looked at her face. She was  _ tired _ . Worried. She had a point. Cassandra had gone from enemy to secret friend to fellow adventurer in the span of a week, and that  _ had  _ to present some emotional challenge. What she didn’t seem to grasp was that the rest of them were just as jarred by the sudden changes. Except maybe Varian, who had barely been conscious, but that had to be emotionally exhausting as well. Still, they were all sick and tired.

“Do you have a plan for that? Because I’m  _ all _ ears.” she hissed, pointing a finger at the jagged walls of the ravine, “Or are you not seeing the spikes there? I’ve had enough of spikes to last me a lifetime.”

Well, they all had.

“Yeah.” he replied, “And if you’d looked around for a second, you would have seen it.”

He directed her gaze to the ceiling of the cave. And the strangely bent climbing spike at the top. 

He smirked, pulling a rope from his bag: “Never go adventuring without a rope.”

The town was decidedly more intimidating when they were walking around with the human equivalent of a powder keg. Well, no, that metaphor wasn’t very accurate. Comparing Elsie to a powder keg would imply that she would become dangerous in contact with the villagers, which was hopefully not true. The villagers, though, did pose a danger to  _ her _ .

So far, thankfully, no one had approached them. No strangely violent ladies in black.

No helpful old men.

No middle-aged knife sellers.

In fact, while most of the people they crossed politely nodded at the two men and two women walking around, no one had so much as spared a glance at the girl stuck between the four of them.

The witch, on her part, looked completely calm.

Quirin leaned down to talk to her: "Can they see you?" he asked.

She confirmed his suspicion: "Not at the moment, no. But they  _ can _ see you talking to yourself."

She grinned at him as he stood straight again, walking casually as if she wasn't a walking target. Until, that is, they reached the town square. 

Town hall was an intimidating building, with tall grey walls that looked like they were more likely to belong to a prison than a place where people went to debate and compromise. Beside it stood an even taller bell tower, which looked somewhat older than town hall. And beneath it was a flight of stairs. That was where Elsie was headed.

"Oh no…" murmured Enya, eyeing the crowd with a mix of distrust and concern, "There's too many people here. What is she doing?"

"Making an announcement." Adira guessed, and she guessed correctly.

The witch stood at the top of the stairs, stretched her arms above her head, and waited.

Someone screamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is a bit fillery but I needed some space before the uh… next few chapters.  
> Sorry :,)  
> Had to write a kilometric essay this weekend and it put me off of writing for a bit :/ but I've never skipped an update and I refuse to start now.
> 
> Leave me a comment because y not, right? :,)
> 
> -Cass


	25. Leap of Faith

The scream of an old woman in front of the bell tower was much like a drop of water falling into a pond. Quickly, in a sort of shockwave, everyone's attention was drawn to the young witch waiting patiently on top of the stairs: people gasped, screamed, ran away, took cover behind their fellow bystanders.

Judging from her face, Elsie found it both insulting and hilarious.

"Hey there." she greeted, "May I have your attention for a few minutes? Or are you too busy sneaking away to call the authorities,  _ Marv _ ?" she added, singling out the guy who was clearly trying to go behind her back with nary a glance in his direction.

Marv froze in his tracks, eliciting a small chuckle from the witch.

"Alright." she started, "As you all know-"

"You damned witch!!"

"Lift the curse!"

She looked at the braver bystanders who had interrupted her with a look that, to anyone who was even remotely scared of her, probably screamed  _ murder _ . To the members of the Brotherhood, it looked more like mild annoyance mixed with amusement.

"What do you think I'm doing here?" she asked.

No one answered. Those brave souls who had so boldly stood up to the dangerous sorceress felt it best to cut their losses and turned their heels in a heroic retreat. 

Only a couple dozen people remained in the previously packed square.

"Okay, can I speak now?" the witch asked, and no one said a word. "Good. As you all know, there's a curse going around, one you have nicknamed  _ the sleeping plague _ , and… look, I know it hasn't killed anyone yet, but it's not a possibility I would exclude. Something must be done,  _ now _ ."

The crowd exchanged worried, unintelligible whispers, but no one spoke up.

None but one.

A boy, probably around eighteen years old, stepped forward, his dark and narrow eyes fixed on Elsie, and Adira felt about ready to intervene should he try anything. But all he said was: "Is it done?"

His voice betrayed a battered hope.

The witch's gaze fell on him and she immediately brightened up: "Daniel! Good to see you. Yeah, it's done. I was here to announce it, but…" she opened her arms to indicate the significant lack of an audience.

Daniel walked up to her, unimpeded: "So you can fix this?"

"I hope so." she grimaced, extending her hand to grab his, "Hey, I promised you. Right?"

He laughed a bitter laugh.

"I know that face. What do I need to do?"

Elsie smiled sincerely: "I knew you'd get it. Lead the way. I'll explain while we walk, kay?"

She then turned to the meager crowd: "Whoever knows someone sick with the sleeping plague, I suggest you listen. This is important."

She climbed down the steps, calmly, and waved her hand for them to follow her.

Daniel held her hand as they walked. She seemed to lean into the touch comfortably. The rest of the group hung back, sensing the feel of trust between them. She wasn't in danger. 

On the way to what was probably his house, she explained to the six or seven who were brave or desperate enough to follow her what she had already told them.

Standing out of the way and at the back of the line, the four foreigners held a quiet conversation.

"The authorities will show up at any moment." mumbled Enya, "If she doesn't hurry up and cure someone before they do…"

She squeezed Quirin's hand.

"I'm sure we could buy her time." replied Adira, "Besides, these people need her."

Hector seemed skeptical.

"When has that ever stopped someone?" he murmured, "They might stab her on principle."

Quirin intervened: "She won't be found if she doesn't want to be. I've seen her make someone forget her face. One small lie and she got away with it."

"That's not creepy." Hector rolled his eyes.

Enya seemed to take offense to the sarcasm: "She is  _ not _ creepy. I've known her for five years now, and all she's done is help people out and take care of her cat."

“Don’t mind him.” Adira smirked, "He's just saying that."

"Don't patronize me." he glared.

"No promises."

"Focus." Quirin reminded them as Elsie finished her explanation, and the conversation ended there.

A few minutes later, they were at Daniel's house for the very first test of the potion. 

Apparently, the infected in that case was Daniel's younger brother, no older than ten, sleeping with false peace in his tiny bed. Like with all the other victims, his face wore the mask of health, but it betrayed an unnatural calm. The child's hands, now tucked between his brother's, were ice cold and pale as a corpse. Quirin remembered Daniel mentioning the same effect on all his appendages: his nose, his feet, his ears, though he couldn't see them, were apparently just as dead-looking.

The young man sat beside his brother's bed, and Elsie sat on it. The witch joined her hands to the entwined hands of the two siblings and traced…  _ something _ , with her finger. A spirally pattern that connected their arms and quickly sparked with that same orange light that had come from the pot.

Quirin's theory was that  _ that _ bright orange must have been the colour of her magic, much like the gold of the Sundrop and the blue of the Moonstone. It smelled, faintly, of cinnamon and burnt wood. It felt like the setting sun in autumn.

And it vanished as quickly as it had appeared. 

The two teenagers locked eyes.

"Now you're bound." she whispered, fishing one of the vials out of her pocket, as well as a little pipette, "Alright, stick your tongue out." she added, nonchalantly, breaking the spellbound silence in the room.

Surprisingly, he did not object. It might have been because he was used to her shenanigans. Either way, she let exactly two drops of the potion fall into his mouth and then hurriedly closed the vial. 

“Tastes like wood.” he commented, perhaps trying to lighten the mood.

She eyed the boy up and down: "So, um… good news, this is almost certain to work. Bad news, you have to fall asleep for it to work. Now, I can either clock you in the head as hard as I can…"

"Preferably not."

"... or I can brush up on my hypnosis skills, but I gotta warn you, I'm no siren."

"How long will that take?"

"Depends. On a lot of things. It's complicated. Anywhere from thirty seconds to twenty minutes."

He bit his lip, weighing his options.

"You know what? Just knock me out."

"Alright." she shrugged and, without hesitation, she decked him in the temple.

The next twenty minutes or so were a blur. The few people Elsie hadn’t shooed out after the outcry that had exploded when she’d punched Daniel watched the sleeping brothers with bated breath. No one said a word. 

Enya was twisting her skirt, a nervous habit she had picked up some twenty years prior, as evidenced by the weird folds near the hip of most of her dresses. The rest of the group was absorbed in their own nervous tics: from lip biting, to nail picking, to pulling loose threads off their clothes and braiding them all together. 

The witch, though, was completely immobile. At one point, she held the little boy’s hand, twisting and massaging his wrists gently.

“What are you doing?” someone whispered, almost afraid of breaking that uncomfortable silence with even more uncomfortable words.

“He’s been asleep for a week now.” she replied, just as quietly, “We need to keep his muscles warm or he won’t be able to move when he wakes up.”

_ When _ he wakes up.

Not  _ if _ .

It felt nice to hear her confident reply. 

But then the room fell back into awkward silence for another ten minutes. The silence, still as a lake, began to move. Boil. Like water in a pot, a pot sealed with a lid and sure to explode if the pressure kept building. 

And it did.

With every passing second, the air got warmer with anticipation and maybe anger, born of distrust and bred by impatience. 

One of the villagers had a tenseness in his neck, a pulsing on his forehead. 

His jaw trembled for a moment.

He opened his mouth, but no one ever knew what he meant to say.

The boy gasped awake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No one:
> 
> Me: MAGIC HAS A SCENT
> 
> Anywho, let me make it clear that I do not condone violence. These two are a very particular case :,)  
> Not a lot of Brotherhood in this chapter, but I needed to show this operation underway.
> 
> -Cass


	26. Crack

The exit to the cave felt like the gates of heaven when they finally crossed it.

“ _ Finally _ !” scoffed Cassandra, carefully dropping Varian on the soft grass outside and practically falling in it: “I was starting to think it was a dead end.”

Eugene made a noise of agreement: “Yeah. I swear, I was  _ this _ close to breaking a wall down.”

“I don’t think that would’ve helped.” she noted, pointing at the huge mountain they’d just emerged from. He stared up. The mountain was tall and his back hurt. His arms, too. He’d been carrying Varian for hours, and the kid was heavy enough, but Rapunzel, both taller and heavier on account of twenty pounds of hair, should, logically, have felt like a bigger burden. She didn't. She fit so perfectly against his back that he had sometimes forgotten he was carrying her. 

He tilted his head back and yep, there she was, with her head resting against his neck. Peacefully asleep. Cold hands. Cold lips against his nape. No more lively than the rock beneath his foot.

It felt wrong.

"What now?" he asked, reluctantly laying her down.

Cassandra stared ahead, indecisively. "I don't know." she admitted, "I wouldn't know where to find them."

"Someone's bound to have seen them."

"Yeah, but do they want us here?" 

Eugene pointed at the mountain: "Bit late for that kind of question.”

Cassandra didn’t seem convinced. Suspiciously so. He narrowed his eyes at her: “Why  _ do _ you have that question?”

She averted her eyes.

“ _ Cassandra _ .”

She cracked.

“I don’t know how fast rumours spread around here!” she scoffed, “What if they’ve heard of us? Hell, maybe they’ve heard of the Brotherhood for all I know.”

“But does it matter?” he shot back, “We have bigger problems than a rumor right now!”

He emphasised the statement with a frantic gesture in the general direction of their unconscious friends. It was really not the time for paranoias. Cassandra, apparently, had a different idea.

“Rumors are powerful, Fitzherbert. We’d be overpowered against an entire town.”

“Why are you so distrustful?” he snapped, “These people don’t know us! Even  _ I _ have never been here. Have you?”

She didn’t answer.

“Have you?”

Silence again.

“You have, haven’t you?” he sighed. 

“Not for long.” she immediately added, “Not directly. Just… around here. I think... “ her voice dropped to a whisper, “I’m about 60% sure I caused that cave in earlier.”

It took him a while to process the statement.

“ _ What _ ?”

“Not on purpose!”

“We could’ve  _ died _ , Cassandra!”

“I  _ know _ that!”

He groaned loudly, passing a hand over his face: “Oh boy. Fine. Stay here.”

“What?”

“Stay here.” he repeated, “Make sure they’re comfortable. I’ll go look. The  _ one _ time I’m in a place where I’m not wanted, I’d better take advantage of that.”

He stared at the first few houses he could see, a few hundred yards away: “Maybe hide.” he added.

Surprisingly, she didn’t argue. She pulled their friends behind a rock, carefully placing them so they wouldn’t get hurt, and waited.

Eugene walked away.

The child more or less collapsed against the witch's shoulder as soon as he tried to sit up, but he was definitely awake. His hands trembled when he fumbled around for support.

“Hey.” Elsie greeted, “How you feeling, Luke?”

The child stared up at her with wide eyes. They were terrifyingly unfocused for just a moment. Then they sparked with recognition and he looked around the room, just as his brother was beginning to stir. 

“It was… a dream?” the boy yawned, sleepily rubbing his eyes. 

Elsie ruffled his hair: “Yep. Welcome back to the real world, kid.”

He made a little groan of protest, uselessly trying to remove her hands from his hair. He seemed weak, but that was probably on account of him not using his muscles for seven days. 

Daniel raised his head from the pillow.

“Luke?” he murmured.

The rest of the group quietly left the room to give them some space. Elsie almost did the same, but Daniel pulled her into a tight embrace. 

“I gotta go.” she whispered, holding back a smile.

He nodded. He said something in her ear, too quiet for anyone else to hear, and then she left. 

“You think he’s cured?” Enya asked her as soon as they were out of earshot of the brothers.

“The green trace is gone.” she replied, and Enya didn’t ask further questions.

Three patients later, most of the group had scattered; some had left to warn the other victims’ relatives, others were tending to the newly awakened. There were only three people left, aside from the Brotherhood and Enya: they introduced themselves as Eva, Vincent and Anna.

Eva’s husband was Vincent’s brother and Anna’s cousin, and their house was their next destination. 

Anna skipped beside them: “I think Auntie’s going to kill you.”

Her cousin shushed her, which she blatantly ignored: “I’m just saying.”

“She doesn’t need to know.” said Vincent, “She  _ really _ doesn’t. Seriously, Anna, I will throw you in the well if you snitch on us.”

“I will never snitch on anyone until Auntie learns the meaning of  _ don’t shoot the messenger _ .”

Eva snorted: “Fair.”

Their conversation caught Adira’s attention, as did the sideways glances Elsie was shooting at them. “Your Auntie sounds like a handful.” she said, prompting the three to nod knowingly.

“She is.” swore Vincent, “She’s just... obsessed.”

“With what?”

The three turned to the witch walking beside them.

“Her.” said Vincent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was about 6PM when it occurred to me that I had to update today. More importantly, that I hadn't finished writing the chapter.  
> I know it's shorter than usual and I'm sorry :(  
> BUT  
> I have never missed an update and I REFUSE TO START NOW
> 
> So yeah  
> Cass out :)
> 
> -Cass


	27. Burn the Witch

_ The sun shone brighter than usual. For some reason. Her hair was loose on her shoulders, as soft as she always remembered. The grass tickled her bare feet. _

_ By all accounts, nothing was out of the ordinary. _

_ So what felt strange to her? _

_ She couldn’t put her finger on it. _

_ She closed her eyes. _

_ Warm.  _

_ Warm. _

_ Hot. _

_ Cold. _

_ Warm. _

_ Her head spun all of a sudden, and the feeling was different. _

_ Warmth like a body’s against her skin. Something soft against her cheek. Then nothing. When the warmth left her, she felt a wave of grief wash through her. _

_ Don’t leave me. _

_ Then it was gone, like everything else. _

Anna’s aunt must have had some kind of superpower, Hector decided. How else could she have shown up out of nowhere within five seconds of being mentioned and started screaming accusations at Elsie while her family looked on with the deepest embarrassment? 

The witch looked calm, on a surface level. Like she was waiting for the storm to blow over. But Hector noticed something else behind her eyes: a different storm, quieter than the woman's but no less destructive, a firestorm only waiting for a spark.

And the spark came soon enough.

"You are the  _ definition _ of hellspawn!" the woman screamed, but didn't dare get close with all six adults present glaring at her: "You murderer!!"

Something snapped in Elsie's composure.

"Oh!!" she scoffed, and a hysterical grin grew on her childlike face: "Oh, you did  _ not  _ say that."

The woman took another step forward, clearly trying to break through the barricade of glaring grown-ups surrounding the kid.

"Murderer!" she screamed, over and over and over again, and Elsie staggered back a half step.

“Pipe down there.” she smirked, and there was a dire warning in her voice.

She did not, in fact, pipe down. She only got louder. Louder. Louder. The words seemed to bounce and clang against Elsie’s head. And the storm came to a head with a burst of lightning that no one could see.

“ _ Quiet _ .” said the witch, and the words echoed in the street and cut off every other sound. The woman didn’t stop screaming. 

But no words came out this time.

The woman clawed at her throat, maybe to feel she still had a voice. She didn’t. Nothing. 

Hector didn’t realize they’d all taken a step back until Elsie walked, unimpeded, up to the lady. 

“I’m done with you.” she declared, quietly. “I put up with you for too long. So you know what?”

When she spoke again, the same orange light spiralled out of her mouth. The woman seemed to realize she was about to cast a spell, because she stumbled back in a panic.

Not fast enough.

“ _ From now on _ …” the witch’s voice echoed through their heads, “ _ You will never speak of me, or to me, again. You may speak of anything, but the moment you speak of me, your voice will fail you. Always. The moment you address me, your voice will fail you. Now, go _ .”

Her voice returned to normal: “I didn’t want to do that.” she said, but she was speaking more to herself than to the woman. The woman in black grabbed her nephew by the shoulders, trying to say something and failing. 

Elsie staggered back a little more and vanished down an alley. 

“Well.” commented Adira once the storm had boiled over, “That was something.”

She sat cross-legged on an empty barrel. Seemingly unphased.

“ _ Something  _ doesn’t really cut it.” Hector scoffed, “Did you  _ see  _ that? She’s got no voice.”

“I don’t think that was the idea. I think the idea was that she needs to find a new topic of conversation.” she shrugged, “Sounds about right for someone who’s obsessed.”

That was very clearly directed at him, and he had half a mind to respond accordingly. But there was something else in her eyes, behind that thick curtain of cold detachment. Pity, maybe. Or satisfaction in a well-deserved revenge. One or the other, or maybe both.

“You enjoyed that.” 

It wasn’t a question. So she didn’t answer immediately.

“A little.” she admitted.

Hector sat against the wall: “I’ll never understand you.”

“Mhm.” she nodded with her eyes closed.

“I don’t think anyone ever will.”

“Fine by me.”

Silence fell.

They actually weren’t quite sure where the instinct to follow her came from. They were hardly aware of it. Or at least, Quirin was. But when he and Enya sat on opposing sides of the young (and clearly exhausted) witch, he didn’t regret it.

Enya put a comforting hand on the girl’s shoulder.

“She had it coming.” she assured her. For some reason, it didn’t seem to convince her.

“Yeah.” she mumbled.

“Rest.” Enya suggested, but it was really more of an order. Still, she took the suggestion and leaned back against the wall. Enya looked straight ahead. “So… what was that, love?”

“Something I didn’t think I could do.” she answered, “I thought-”

She cut herself off. 

Quirin didn’t know if it was his place to step in. It felt like there was something there that they knew and he didn’t. But, if there was one thing he’d learned the hard way, it was that sometimes you couldn’t get out of a talk.

“Why does this disturb you so much?” he asked her. 

She shrugged. “I didn’t think I could do that. Cast spells with my voice? My sister can do that, but I didn’t know I could.”

“You have a sister?”

“Three.” she held up three fingers: “All older. I’m the baby of the family.” she smirked. 

Quirin frowned: “Where are they?”

“I don’t know.” she mumbled. “We were split up. And I can’t leave. If I could communicate with them, they could get me out of here. The curse must be broken from the outside.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well.” she shrugged again, “I can take care of myself. They’ll get suspicious eventually.”

Something came to mind.

“Why did she call you a murderer?” he asked.

She took a moment to answer. “She’s got some nerve.” she replied, “Some nerve to call me a murderer. That thing you saw? That was the first time I used magic  _ against _ her or anyone else in this place. Her? She’s almost single-handedly responsible for a dozen murders.”

He was none the wiser and she recognized that. “It was about… seven years ago?” she continued, “I made friends with her son. Ben. He was a nice kid.” she sighed, “He was my first friend here. At that time, he was my  _ only _ friend here. Then he got sick. So I studied healing magic, which is  _ nowhere near _ as easy as it sounds. He got better.”

He genuinely couldn’t tell where she was going with it.

She sighed deeply. “And then he died. Unrelated. It was an accident, and I was nowhere near him when it happened. But she’d hated me from day one so hey, let’s call witchcraft right? Let’s arrest dozens of people. Let’s execute them, because no one’s going to care about the witch from out of town.” she laughed, bitterly. “I didn’t kill Ben. He was my friend. I didn’t kill  _ anyone _ . If anyone’s a murderer here, it’s her. And now I either pissed her off more or scared her out of ever talking to me again. Either way, curses are…” she sighed.

There was something strange in Enya’s eyes. “That tired you out.” she recognized. 

She nodded. “A little.”

Enya ruffled her hair. Elsie stood up in a hurry: “Okay, that’s about enough talking for the next… two centuries or so. Let’s go back.”

_ The night air on his face was as familiar as the quiet humming outside.  _

_ Who was humming? _

_ Someone. _

_ Their voice was reassuring. _

_ So was the warm light in the room, and the quiet bubbling of whatever it was in his beaker. He wasn’t quite sure what it was. _

_ But it was safe. _

_ He watched the bubbles rise, resting his head on his arms. _

_ Everything was fine. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thoroughly enjoy writing any interaction between Hector and Adira, just fyi.  
> So, hey, I'm kinda late again. Last week of school before the exams.  
> BUT writing is a coping mechanism so I will NOT stop :)
> 
> SO
> 
> Next update is, as always, on Friday, BUT!! Tune in Thursday for a one-shot in occasion of my birthday. I will get a few one-shots out for different fandoms I'm in :3  
> That's right kids, I'm growing up :,) On Thursday, am officially the same age as Raps was in the S1 finale.
> 
> See ya Thursday, kiddos
> 
> -Cass


	28. Does the Moon Dream?

If sitting awake and alone at night was lonely, sitting awake with two comatose people laying right next to her was so much lonelier, Cassandra decided. Because, in addition to the loneliness, there was crushing worry. A terrible anxiety that whispered the same thing in her ear, over and over again:  _ what if you never hear them speak again _ ?

That was the worst part. 

She had tried laying with her back to them and ignoring them, but it had worked for all of two minutes before the same anxiety had started screaming that  _ you’re supposed to watch them, you coward. _

“Come on.” she mumbled, scooting closer to her best friend’s (or former best friend’s?) unconscious body, “Come on, Raps. You’re stronger than that. What does she have on you? Since when are  _ you  _ the victim in these stupid spells? Come on. And you…” she turned to Varian, “You’ve slept enough, kid. I could... we… I could use some help here. I didn’t even…” she paused.

“I didn’t even apologize to you.” she murmured, “You have to give me that, at least. You’re the only one I haven’t apologized to. It doesn’t count if you can’t hear me!” she yelled, crawling over to him: “Wake up!”

She had… somehow, held  _ some _ hope that it would work on at least one of them. At least for a moment. A few seconds was all she needed, but neither of them was reacting in the slightest. Not even the slightest sign of discomfort showed on their sleeping faces. In fact, they looked… disturbingly peaceful. More than usual. Rapunzel, in particular, looked completely lost on cloud nine. She was  _ smiling _ . Why was she smiling?

“Why are you smiling?”

No answer.

“Why aren’t you waking up?”

No answer.

“What’s wrong with you?”

_ Silence _ .

Night fell fast and no one went to sleep. Obviously. 

But they came  _ close _ sometimes. 

Hector's eyelids felt heavy. More than usual. He sat as uncomfortably as possible, leaning his back against a jagged rock in front of Enya’s tiny apartment to keep himself awake, but it wasn't working. There was nothing in his head. No thoughts. No plans. Just a tired haze.

He knew, they  _ all _ knew, that they couldn't keep it up for long. At that moment, he was alone, too. Adira had left with Elsie to take care of some more people, Quirin and Enya had left to catch up (because thirteen years was a lot and, judging from his face, he'd also made up his mind to tell her about Varian).

So basically, he was alone.

He chucked a pebble at someone's wall with a heavy sigh. He couldn't keep it up for much longer without  _ something _ to focus on. Unfortunately, though most of the town wasn’t asleep,  _ some _ were just a little too stubborn, which was only making more work for all of them. Rude. 

For some reason, the guards were no longer inclined to mess with the witch after the whole silence curse, so at least there was no danger there. However, magic was still very much frowned upon and some people were apparently too dumb to look evidence in the face, which was  _ not  _ good for them if they wanted to get out of town as soon as possible. Which, they did.

Overall, they were not in the best place.

Hector leaned back even further. He was really, really,  _ really _ tired.

Eugene had no trouble at all finding the Brotherhood, because every single one of them stuck out like a sore thumb. The average villager in Weißenbrück was below six feet in height and not in full knight’s gear. Of course they’d seen them. So when a guy pointed him to an  _ intimidating man with green eyes _ , he felt pretty confident he had the right people.

And, to be fair, he did find Hector. Only Hector.

He seemed to be strangely relaxed, leaning against a rock with his eyes closed and arms crossed. Eugene wasn’t entirely sure he was awake and even less sure he wanted to try and get his attention when he didn’t seem to be on high alert. He looked around. Where were the other two?

He figured they’d be back soon, but they didn’t have that kind of time. There was no other option. Hector had napped long enough.

He briefly considered shaking him awake, but realized that may not end well for him. Then again, he’d also never talked to the guy.

“Hector?” he called, quietly.

No reply. 

“Hector?” he repeated, a little louder. 

Still nothing. He felt a cold chill run up his spine. Caution be damned, he grabbed the former knight by the arm, half expecting to be thrown across the street, but nope. No reaction whatsoever, not so much as a change in expression. 

Also known as  _ bad news _ . 

A twinge of panic made him shake Hector more forcefully, and still no reaction, not even when his cheek brushed against the rough stone behind him. Eugene felt his muscles freeze and deflate. He dropped the knight’s freezing arm and it fell to the ground, unimpeded. 

_ What do I do? _

_ Where is everyone else? _

One of those questions was answered soon enough. A woman burst out of the door and he nearly toppled over from the start.

“Hector!” she called, and her voice cracked, “Hector, there’s a pr-” she froze. 

“Who are you?” she asked, and her brow quirked in a mix of curiosity and suspicion. On second thought, he probably didn’t look so good sitting next to an unconscious guy in the lady’s yard. 

She examined him: “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

“Yes. No. Maybe? It’s not important.” he decided, “He won’t wake up. I think…”

The woman went pale: “Oh, not him too…”

“ _ Too _ ?”

She stuttered something, decided she wasn’t being sufficiently clear, took a deep breath, and restarted. 

“My husband’s the same.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cass is going a little bit off her rocker.  
> Am I talking about Cassandra or myself, you ask?  
> Yes.
> 
> STILL HAVEN'T BROKEN MY POSTING STREAK  
> Aaaaaand I'm sorry to fellow Brotherhood fans. I really am. 
> 
> Sorry I'm a bit late (technically still Friday so I consider it a win), yesterday I didn't write at all because it was my birthday and I was kinda busy :,)
> 
> On that note, I should say that due to Life Stuff and other fanfic plans, this fic is going back to two updates a week. I'll see if I can take it back to three once exams are over but that won't be until maybe July.   
> Also I kinda have another long fic for another fandom in the works and THIS ACCOUNT NEEDS VARIETY (and also me because my attention span lasts about as long as a match)
> 
> I hope you understand.
> 
> See y'all Tuesday and take care, loves
> 
> -Cass


	29. Into the Fire

There was mostly silence from them as they waited for Elsie and Adira to get back. The occasional questions barely made any difference when the quiet breathing of their sleeping friends hung so heavy above them. 

They introduced themselves.

Talked about what was going on. 

Not much else.

It was only after twenty minutes of confused, spellbound silence that Enya cracked and laughed. A very bitter laugh, but a laugh nonetheless.

Eugene raised his brow at her. She shook her head with a tired grin: "Nothing, it's nothing. I've been living quietly for five years and now in the span of two days…" 

"I know. I think we both know how much a single day can change your life."

"You're so young, too."

"My friends are younger and hey, we all know what that's like." he scoffed, masking his disdain with a grin. He was _tired_ . Not sleepy, he'd slept enough, but he was _tired_.

She nodded kindly: "You're tired. I know." 

Silence fell again. Not for long. Out the corner came the tiny witch, flanked by the less tiny Adira and looking… something. Tired, maybe nervous. She was definitely in a hurry, although that might've been an attempt to keep up with someone twice her size, and both their expressions suggested they already knew what had happened.

They did, as it turned out. Elsie collapsed into a chair as soon as she was able to sneaking glances at the sleeping brothers out the corner of her eye. She looked even more emaciated than before.

"So who's going in?" she asked, "Quickly." she added, almost as an afterthought. 

"I am." said Adira, without hesitation, and Elsie seemed inclined to agree. She nodded, and shut down Enya almost immediately: "No." she stated before the woman could say anything, "You've been cursed once already, it's risky and very likely to fail."

"I have to try."

"No, you don't." the witch answered, matter-of-fact, "No one's blaming you. Take a raincheck on this one. I'm not sending you."

It was final and they all knew it. 

  
  


_There will always be a valley_

_Always mountains one must scale_

_There will always be perilous waters_

_Which someone must sail_

Adira had no idea what she’d expected from Quirin’s unconscious mind. But this wasn’t it.

The song was distant, but ever present, a powerful choir she’d grown used to over time. They all had. If she focused enough, she could almost hear her own voice back at seventeen, singing along with everyone else. 

_Into valleys, into waters_

_Into jungles, into hell_

_Let us ride, let us ride home again_

_With a story to tell_

She found herself humming along to the song. How did she still remember the words?

Somewhere in the distance, in the opposite direction from the music, was a campfire. Which way to go? Either. Both.

The night air was surprisingly pleasant despite the snow that covered the very top of the trees. Logically, it should have been freezing her exposed hands, at least. But there was no such thing as logic in dreams. She stepped in the direction of the campfire. 

The song didn’t grow any quieter.

_Into darkness, into danger_

_Into storms that rip the night_

_Don't give in, don't give up_

_But give thanks for the glorious fight_

  
  


A mile and a mind away, Eugene walked in a breezy meadow in June.

He could see this being Rapunzel’s mind. Except for one thing: the silence.

There was nothing to be heard where he stood. He could see the grass moving, but the wind made no sound. A bee flew by him with no trace of a buzz. A stream should gurgle, but the one near him did not.

He stepped forward. While Rapunzel wasn’t exactly hard to spot, he couldn’t see her anywhere near. Although, he realized, the grass was tall. Not to be deterred, he started a circle around the meadow. The sun was just the perfect temperature. Everything was too perfect. The temperature, the wind, the softness of the grass, the colours, the bugs, the flowers, the smell, everything felt too perfect and it made him sick. 

But he realized something then. 

Zhan Tiri was not prepared for dreamwalkers. The world he stood in was a bubble. Limited. Something was missing. If he could get Rapunzel to see that, they would be fine. He walked faster.

The silence was the loudest sound of all.

  
  


Sometimes, just sometimes, Cassandra agreed that Varian needed to rest. This was _not_ one of those times. He’d slept enough. 

She did, however, find it so very typical of him to dream of his lab, the one he spent literal days in. How very Varian of him. At least it wouldn’t be hard to find him, she thought, and indeed, there he was. Sitting at his desk, watching something boil. His head was resting on his crossed arms. There was something sleepily content in his smile, his relaxed posture, his eyes. Something she had never seen on his face.

He looked genuinely at peace. No anxieties, no dreams and no tortured memories. Only the quiet, cheerful bubbling of chemicals and the warm light in the lab.

And Cassandra knew then that there was something wrong with that dream. 

It was only confirmed when she touched the alchemist’s shoulder. His eyes widened, for a fraction of a second, and then nothing. 

Cassandra blinked. She grabbed him by the shoulder: “Varian, look at me.”

He did. 

“Oh, hey Cassie.” he murmured, sleepily. Then he turned back. 

Cassandra waited for something more. Any sign that he was aware of her presence. He said nothing.

Eventually, she grabbed his shoulder again, turning him around: “Hey!”

He looked at her.

“Oh, hey Cassie.”

_ Never hold back your step for a moment _

_ Never doubt that your courage will grow _

_ Hold your head even higher and into the fire we go _

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone who doesn't know, the song is "Into the Fire" from the Scarlet Pimpernel musical and it's a song all about camaraderie and brotherhood in battle :)))
> 
> I don't have much to say. Sorry this is short but hey, brief attempt at a songfic I guess????
> 
> Cya kids :)  
> Take care
> 
> -Cass


	30. The Meadows' Song

Eugene remembered something that his girlfriend had told him once, one sleepy November morning.

_ There's music everywhere _ .

It had always rung true for him, without fail. Crickets, a dripping faucet, the whoosh of the wind in fall, voices in the next room, insects flying by his ear, even his own breath: music. Sound. Pleasant and safe, and a constant reminder that he was real and present and grounded.

But there was no music in that meadow. It was false, artificial, and the silence was artificial too, and everything was weird. Confusing.

_ Stay calm _ .

Was he real?

_ Calm. _

Was any of it real?

_ Breathe. _

_ Can't hear my breath. _

Was his heart truly beating if he couldn't hear it pulsing somewhere in the back of his mind? Was his breath necessary at all if it wasn't making a sound? Were his eyes deceiving him?

He sped up. 

He stepped forward.

_ Buzzzzz- _

_ Whoooosh… _

_ Gurgle gurgle gurgle _

_ Crunch. _

_ Tweet tweet. Tweet. _

Sound.

Real sound?

No. 

It hadn't been real up until that point so why would it be real then?

Singing.

Wait.

_ That  _ was real.

He recognized the voice. For that matter, he recognized the melody as well. An old song.

A lullaby. He wondered who she'd heard it from.

Could've been anyone, really. Everyone in Corona knew the Meadows' Song.

_ Fly, little hummingbird _

_ Bring me a rose _

_ A rose all in pink _

_ And pluck out three thorns _

She was such a good singer. Her voice soared in that artificial bubble, above all the false tones of the false nightingales that sat in the false trees. He felt almost spellbound. He took a step in her direction.

_ Fly, little hummingbird _

_ Bring me a rose _

_ A rose all in purple _

_ And pluck out four thorns _

It was a game, he remembered, that she was playing almost absent-mindedly, all by herself. The game was very simple; it was mostly just seeing how many colours the players could think of, really. Normally, they would take turns. She was singing by herself.

_ Fly, little hummingbird _

_ Bring me a rose _

_ A rose all in blue _

_ And pluck out five thorns _

He spotted her sitting in the tall grass by herself. It curved in on her, almost shielding her. Or trapping her.

He made a decision then, as the fifth verse of the Meadows' Song faded and she breathed in to sing the sixth. He stepped forward:

" _ Fly, little hummingbird, bring me a rose. A rose all in gold, and pluck out six thorns." _

She stared ahead, unphased, and sang the seventh verse: " _ Fly, little hummingbird, bring me a rose. A rose all in green, and pluck out seven thorns." _

" _ Fly, little hummingbird, bring me a rose. A rose all in white, and pluck out eight thorns _ ."

" _...a rose all in yellow…" _

" _...magenta? _ "

" _...black…" _

_ "...grey." _

_ "...orange-" _

_ "Brown." _

_ "...indigo…" _

_ "...scarlet…" _

_ "Mauve… _ " Rapunzel sang, and froze. Like she was struggling to think of a color for the next verse. And thank goodness for that, because after  _ beige _ he was officially out of ideas, too.

She turned to look at her singing partner as if she was noticing him for the first time.

"Eugene?" she yawned, "When did you get here? I didn't hear you coming."

"I've been here for five minutes." he answered, dropping to his knees in front of her: "Are you okay?"

"Um…" she tilted her head: "Yeah. Why… do you ask?"

She seemed to find the question both funny and unnerving, as her wide and uncomfortable smile attested. Understandably. If he hadn't known they were in a dream, he wouldn't have questioned her playing a children's game by herself for a second.

"Rapunzel, I need you to think."

"I believe I can do that." she grinned, "Is everything okay, Eugene? You sound stressed." she frowned. 

"I'm fine, Sunshine. Listen, we need to get out of here."

"... _ here _ ? Like… this field? The village? The kingdom?"

"No, no…" he sighed, "Look, Blondie… I really don't know how to explain this, but…"

"Try me."

"... you're… dreaming. This is a dream. All a dream."

Her expression went from amused to terribly confused to skeptical, and back to amused but with a healthy sprinkling of concern thrown in for flavor: "Uh… Eugene, are you… feeling okay?"

She pawed at his forehead to test his temperature and seemed both relieved and confused when she didn't find evidence of a fever. Her hands were icy cold, but she didn't seem to realize that. He grasped the one she'd been holding to his forehead: "Hey, could you come with me? I need to show you something."

" _ Eugene _ !" she squealed in delight, "Do you perhaps have a surprise for me?"

He grimaced. "Something like that."

He led her away from her grassy prison, which strangely didn't object. If he could get her to hear the silence, he figured, she would have no choice but to believe him.

Except, when he passed the stream, it gurgled. The birds still chirped no matter where they stood in the field, even in spots where he was sure he hadn't heard them before. A bee flew by his ear and the loud buzz only made his terrible day worse.

" _ How _ ??" he exclaimed in frustration, "It was gone before!!"

"What was?"

"The sound!!"

"The… sound?" 

She looked  _ really _ confused, and he couldn't say he blamed her. He tried to explain. She only grew more concerned. She answered questions about herself, her family, her friends and him very easily. She got all their ages right, could describe exactly where they all lived, could describe Cassandra, her father, Hector and everyone else without issues, but for some reason would not believe him on the dream thing.

He thought it through for a second. Maybe he had a good response. A question that was sure to stump her if she didn't know she was dreaming.

"Rapunzel, what's the last thing you remember before you came to the field?"

And Rapunzel couldn't answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter and the next three will be more individually focused :)  
> In case you're wondering if the Meadows' song is a real thing like with last chapter… it's not. I made it up at 3am and I refuse to take responsibility for my sleepy brain's creations :,)  
> I ran out of colours eventually 
> 
> See ya :3  
> -Cass


	31. Ouroboros

It was warm in the lab. Not surprising, with all the frankly concerning fires lit all around the room. Like, how many things did he need to heat up?

Cassandra was starting to understand how the kid managed to blow something up every other week, with the unsupervised flames and all. It was a little worrying. Maybe they should spend some time on a crash course in lab safety. 

Yeah, maybe. Once they’d solved the massive problem at hand.

Cassandra tried everything. She called him, grabbed his shoulder, spoke to him, explained what was happening, but his consciousness was fickle. Brief. He responded, then turned back and that was that. 

“Varian, can you hear me?”

“Yeah, why?”

His eyes went blank and he turned away.

“Varian, you’re dreaming!”

“What?”

His eyes went blank and he turned away.

“Varian, listen.”

“I’m listening.”

His eyes went blank and he turned away.

Cassandra wanted to throw something (and briefly pondered if  _ that _ would get his attention), but she wasn’t quite there yet. Not quite that desperate. She didn’t know how dream physics worked and throwing a random vial at a wall had a decent chance of resulting in a splash of corrosive liquid aimed at them.

There was a rule to this, wasn’t there?

All she had to do was figure it out.

Maybe breaking something  _ would _ be a solution. If he didn’t remember it being broken. She was cautious, though. Tentatively, she grabbed a vial laying on the table. It wasn’t real anyway, right? But she wasn’t gonna risk it. She popped the cap off the vial and poured a few drops out on the table. No bubbling. No corrosion. No explosions.

_ Alright _ , she shrugged,  _ here goes nothing _ . 

The vial crashed violently against the wall. Loud.

It did get Varian’s attention.

“What-” he sputtered, “W- what are you  _ doing _ ?”

He took a half step forward and, for a second, Cassandra thought she’d found the solution. And then he turned away. And she was back to step one.

She honestly didn’t know how many tries it took before she figured it out. She would put the number somewhere between two hundred and too many. But eventually, an idea came to mind. The duration of his consciousness didn’t seem to be precisely timed.

The only thing that was the same every time was that he only said one sentence. One breath.

So maybe…

She grabbed him by the shoulder: “Hey, Varian, I dare you to say the longest, uninterrupted sentence you can. Without breathing.”

He stared at her for a second.

“Um okay I guess why do you ask that to test my breath capabilities maybe because I’d say I’m not bad at that per se although I’m not above average either why do you want to know tha- this isn’t my lab.”

Cassandra’s breath hitched: “No, no it’s not.”

She didn’t breathe at all as he pondered what she was saying. If this didn’t work, she would have to drag him out by force. If that was even possible. It probably wasn’t. But he didn’t sit back at his desk.

“No, no, it’s all wrong.” he frowned, “When did the walls get so grey? They weren’t like that before. And that- that is not the truth serum I made. Why is it purple??”

He kept pacing around the lab, pointing out detail after detail that the dream was getting wrong; wrong colours, sizes, misplaced objects, unreadable texts.

“Where am I?” he concluded, stopping dead in his tracks with a completely lost expression in his blue eyes. When he finally turned his eyes on Cassandra, though, was maybe the worst part of that entire situation.

He  _ flinched _ . 

She flinched right back. He backed away, just a step, as he took in his surroundings once again. And that was the moment Cassandra realized something very strange. She caught her reflection in the chipped glass of a beaker and she saw it. Her glowing blue hair. Her black armor. And the stone lodged in her chest.

It was impossible. She was sure she didn’t look like that when she had entered the dream. And her chest was not throbbing with the cold magic of the Moonstone, so it was an illusion.

But he didn’t know that.

“Where…” he backed away one more step, “Where did you take me? What is this?”

She almost bit back with a snide remark before recalling that oh right, it wouldn’t have been the first time she’d trapped him somewhere and he’d woken up on the other side of the kingdom. She felt a cold terror running through her. The fact that her appearance had changed meant that this dream was either mercurial and ever changing based on the victim’s consciousness, or they were not alone.

Something cold and dark swirled in her chest, tight around her heart. Her hands started shaking, cold as ice. Was this how the curse worked? She remembered someone mentioning  _ giving in to the nightmares _ , and she knew she was in trouble.

If she didn’t pull herself together and convince him she didn’t want to hurt him, then neither of them would be leaving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's short, and I know it's late, and I'm sorry  
> I have exams very soon, so the story may be suspended at some point, but for no more than a week, don't worry :,)
> 
> Leave a comment for my poor dead braincell
> 
> -Cass


	32. Snowfall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this is late ily <3

Snow was something special to Adira. It was so beautiful, so graceful, as it fluttered down to the Earth as if to embrace it. At the same time, it was deadly, a freezing cold mantle of doom if you were unequipped to face it.

It was a lot like her, some guy had told her. That may have been the only compliment that ever stuck out to her, because it did have a hint of truth to it. It wasn't enough to get the boy more than a passing glance, but at least he'd put some effort into it. The thing with compliments, she thought, was that they didn’t matter unless they were free.

The snow crunched beneath her feet, just like real snow. It wasn’t real. It didn’t bite into her skin the moment it touched her. And the song of her childhood was no more real than the lukewarm snow on the ground, or the still trees around her.

She moved slowly through the storm. It was rather… surprising that the chosen atmosphere for Quirin’s dream would be a snowstorm. For several reasons. 

Treading through the snow didn’t feel any different than walking through a meadow in spring. The song remained, consistently, in her left ear, no louder or quieter than before, no matter where she turned. It had been almost reassuring, at first, to hear that music. Now it was just unnerving. 

She found her brother sitting hunched over at a campfire, with a completely neutral expression on his face. No warm smile, no furrowed brow, no concern and no affection, just a neutral, relaxed half-smile.

She sat next to him without a word. The fire was as warm as the snow; no more, no less, and that possibly even creepier than the snow, because there was no way Quirin hadn’t noticed that the fire didn’t burn. Then again… dream logic. 

The crackling of the fire and the distant song were all that broke the silence. She wasn’t having that.

“The fire’s cold.” she observed. 

Quirin gave a tired sigh: “Is it?”

“Ah, so you  _ can  _ hear me.”

“Yes.”

“You know…” she said, “I was under the impression that victims of the sleeping curse didn’t know they were dreaming.”

“So was I.” he murmured, “But apparently it’s more complicated than that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I walked for miles in every direction and I keep finding myself back here.” he sighed. 

She wasn’t the type to give up before trying.

“I don’t think this is going to work.” Quirin sighed, knowing full well that his opinion meant nothing at that exact moment.

“You don’t know it.” she shrugged, “This place is designed to trap  _ you _ , not me.”

“Yes, but I don’t see how me coming with you is going to help your cause.”

She stared quietly at the snow piling on top of the pines. She kind of missed snow. Real snow. It was hard to find in Corona and she hadn’t been there during the fabled blizzard that she’d heard so much about. Nor did she want to bring it up to Quirin. 

Except she didn’t need to, because he brought it up first.

“I don’t know why it had to be snow.” he said.

“What?”

“I don’t know why there’s snow here.” he repeated, “From everyone else’s stories, I was under the impression that these dream worlds were… ideal. Somewhat. I don’t know why there’s snow here.”

It was a good point. She had to admit that she had no idea either. “I don’t know.” she said, “It looks like everyone is different. We’ll have to figure it out.”

Silence.

“Yes, but why snow?” he wondered.

“I don’t know.”

“It feels malicious.”

She raised her brow at him.

“Especially malicious, I mean.” he clarified. 

It was a strange feeling, for sure, but he had a point. This dream had the potential to turn into a nightmare.

“I didn’t have time to ask you about the blizzard.” she said.

His step faltered for a moment: “I can’t say I mind.”

Silence. Then he spoke again.

“At least this snow isn’t cold.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“I know it’s over, but-”

He cut himself off. She let him take his time. He needed to gather his wits, which usually meant admitting to something that had been bothering him. For a year at least. Which was, remarkably, not a long time for him to hold something in, but it wasn’t good. 

Finally, he spoke, almost too quiet to hear: “He could’ve gotten hurt.”

She nodded, quietly.

“I had Frederic come up to me and I had to pretend I didn’t have the urge to punch him.” he pressed on, “He thinks I don’t see him walking on eggshells around me. What a farce.” he sighed, “I’m tired. I’m tired of it.”

She stared at the snow below her feet. They weren’t leaving any footprints.

“Quirin?”   
“Mh?”

“About wanting to punch him…”

“Adira-”

“If you don’t do it, I’ll punch him for you.” she smiled, slightly, and he shook his head.

“Adira, no.”

“Even if I don’t, you can’t stop Hector and you know it.”

He produced a little snort that almost sounded like a laugh.

“I’ll consider it.” he said.

Three miles later, she had to admit defeat. They were back at the cold fire and the warm snow was making both their heads look like a snowball. Quirin’s eyes said  _ I told you so _ , but his voice just said: “I don’t know how we’re going to get out.”

Straight to the point, clearly. That meant he was tired of everything. Which sounded pretty accurate.

“I don’t know either.” she admitted, “I don’t think this happened with anyone else.”

“Elsie did mention unique challenges.”

“I didn’t think she meant this.” she frowned, “We need to brainstorm.”

They sat at the cold fire in unison. Quirin hunched over and Adira straight but not stiff, as usual.

“I don’t think walking will help us.” Quirin deadpanned, just to start. That much was true, but it was also a given after they’d both walked in circles for miles. What conclusions could they draw from that?

“If physical action does nothing…” Adira reflected, “We should probably try to use our heads.”

“Good deduction. How?”

“Great question.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am back :DDD  
> And happy to announce that my exam went well and I am therefore officially out of school :D  
> Unfortunately I still have a pretty full schedule so updates will be on Friday henceforth
> 
> Leave a comment if you think the Brotherhood should punch Frederic. 
> 
> -Cass


	33. Metaphysics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy slightly late birthday to @IloveVarian22!!

The tendrils of fear snapped and bit just behind her neck, and Cassandra was about ready to leave. Unfortunately, she had a few minor problems to deal with before that. Particularly, one small and frightened alchemist who was, not unreasonably, looking at her like she was going to murder him.

She put both her hands forward, intending to reassure him. Which might have worked better if her powers hadn’t been triggered by hand movement. 

Varian nearly knocked over a dangerous looking beaker and she resolved to change her approach before someone got hurt. She stepped back.

The tendrils coiled tight around her arm. They didn't hurt. 

Worse.

They made it completely numb.

She extended her hand again, palm facing upwards, and invitation rather than a threat: “Varian, I’m not here to hurt you.” 

She bit her lip: “Ever.” she added, “And I’m sorry I did. It was an accident.”

He didn’t answer. For a moment. Then, he sighed: “I know.” he murmured, “I know… that. You’ve already told me, it’s just… I don’t know. Instinct, I guess.” 

The fear loosened up.

_ More like trauma _ .

The grip on her arm returned. Her right side was slowly numbing and she struggled to move her leg and cautiously approach the alchemist.

"It's okay, Varian."

"But I don't understand." he continued, "Why am I here? Where is  _ here _ ?"

She couldn't feel her hand at all now. Her right arm hung loosely at her side.

"We're in a dream." she explained, in a hurry: "We're in a dream and you're afraid and I need you to calm down or it will make everything worse!"

The tendrils' grip tightened mercilessly, and she could swear Varian's hand was beginning to numb too. He seemed to notice, frowning as he shook his arm and his fingers swayed with the movement: "W… what's this?" he stuttered, and his entire arm stopped moving altogether. 

_ This isn't good. _

"Varian, calm down!" 

She grabbed his shoulder with her good arm in an attempt to block the vicious cycle of fear, but it didn't seem to help much. The darkness swirled in her chest. 

Thankfully, he at least heard her. He sucked in a struggling breath, allowing the muscles in his jaw to unclench, and closed his eyes in concentration.

"It's fine." he whispered to himself as the tendrils shrieked with unearthly rage in Cassandra's ear, "I'm fine."

"You're fine."

"We're fine!" he laughed, nervously, and the dark clouds of fear receded ever so slightly.

"We're still breathing." said Cassandra.

"We are."

"We're not scared."

"Nope!"

"We're alright."

"We're safe." Varian murmured, burying his face in his hands, "We're safe."

The tendrils shrieked with rage and burst into a thin mist, which dissolved in seconds; at the same time, something else burst: Varian's laughter, genuine and glad, broke through the quiet buzz in the background and shattered the illusion of sound. 

The gurgle of boiling chemicals stopped, as did the quiet hiss of steam and gas from the machines; a vial rolled off the desk and crashed, completely silent, onto the floor.

Silence.

Varian blinked.

"Oh." was his only comment. He snapped his fingers beside his ear, twice, and they made that loud click they were supposed to make without issue. Varian breathed a sigh of relief at the confirmation that he did, in fact, still possess his hearing ability. And then he tensed up again, probably realizing just how freaky the soundless lab was.

"This isn't right." was all he said, quietly, almost as if he didn't want to disturb the unnatural silence. Cassandra shook her head.

"No." she said, "It isn't, because you're dreaming." 

"Dreaming?"

"You're under a spell. Or a curse. Or an illness. We haven't quite figured that part out." she admitted, "We're in your mind. There's an entire village plagued by the same curse. We got a witch to help us, but I can't get you out unless you get  _ yourself  _ out." 

"What-"

"In other words, Varian…" she sighed, "This just became a lucid dream. So control it."

It took him more time than he would've liked. Sometimes, if he focused hard enough, he could spot cracks at the edge of his vision, the first signs of collapse in that make-believe world; but, as soon as his concentration was even remotely broken, the cracks filled up and the sound returned,  _ bubble bubble, hissssss, clink _ .

Cassandra sat patiently at the desk. Well, as patiently as was possible with her, anyway. But at least she didn't yell at him for taking so long.

He huffed in frustration, clenching and unclenching his fists in preparation for his next attempt.

_ Breathe _ , he reminded himself,  _ breathe _ .

Breath, in.

Out.

In.

Out.

Slowly.

In.

Hold.

Out.

In.

Hold.

Out.

And his chest filled up with power, strength and confidence with every breath. 

He focused on what was outside. 

The rest of the group.

His father.

The sky.

The grass.

People.

Noise.

Real sound, real touch and real taste.

Close and yet far.

All he had to do was just…

_ Wake up. _

_ Wake up. _

_ Wake up. _

The floor crumbled under them, yet they did not fell. Not down, anyway. Instead, they were pulled up, up, through the shattered ceiling of the false lab, and into darkness.

Varian sat up with a start and his head felt like it would split down the middle. 

He hissed in pain, bringing his hands to his temples as if to hold it together. 

Voices.

Two- three. Three voices.

One fierce and warm, rising through the silence like the moon in the sky.

One soft and gentle, like a red blanket on a cold night.

One thin and somewhat rough, that smelled like cinnamon and oranges.

Hands on his shoulders.

"Drink this." said the thin voice, and there was something on his lips. It tasted sweet. 

"Is he okay?" asked the fierce voice from the corner, and the gentle voice asked him the same thing.

He nodded quietly. A small and bony hand ran through his hair and pressed against his forehead. The cinnamon and oranges were everywhere all of a sudden, and he could see a sunset glow when the hand touched him, that faded slowly once it had left.

"He's fine." declared the thin voice, and the other two seemed relieved.

Finally, he opened his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I KNOW I'M A BIT LATE, I'M SORRY  
> I wish my family would tell me a little earlier when we have to leave town
> 
> Also yay, Varian's awake!! :D finally. The poor boy's slept way too much.
> 
> Leave a comment and say happy birthday to my poor patient commenter
> 
> -Cass


	34. Sleepy Grey

The snow had been falling for a while and yet it wasn’t piled any higher than before. It felt like hours since Adira had entered the dream and the landscape was still unnervingly unchanging. 

“This isn’t working.” she observed, and she felt her brain die a little more.

“Mhm.” 

Quirin had gone nearly nonverbal after hours of fruitless conversation. He was currently staring at the gray sky above.

They sat at the campfire for the fifth time that day. For the first time since she'd set foot in the false snow of the dream, Adira felt a shiver running up her spine. A torrential stream of thoughts pushed its way to the front of her mind, until she relented, and slowly allowed it to escape.

"I was upset." she blurted out before she could stop herself. Knowing very well that this may be the last time she would have the chance to reveal it.

When Quirin raised his brow, she explained: "When I found you trapped in the amber. I didn't think you were alive. I really didn't. And it wasn't a pleasant thought."

He sighed: "Well, I certainly hope not."

“It’s unlike you to make a joke like that.”

“Maybe. But maybe I’m just tired.” he shrugged, “Maybe sometimes I think I’m still in there.”

She would have sassed him about that, but he had essentially escaped one prison to fall in another. Him and his son both. Bad luck must’ve run in the family, she thought.

“And look at this.” he continued, raising his arm to the sky, “We have no idea how to get out of here.”

He didn’t have gloves. The tattoo on his hand was out for all to see, which was also sort of unusual. Then again, it was just the two of them there and hiding it would have made less than no sense. She stared listlessly at the circle cut by three spikes. She remembered being twelve and thinking it looked cool. Now, it was just sort of...there. A part of them.

She vaguely remembered something she’d found in a book ages past, and what Elsie had told her about it when she’d asked. 

“Maybe we can’t get out of  _ here _ .” she murmured.

“I’m sure you can find some way to-”

“No, Quirin, that’s not what I mean.” she hurriedly corrected, “Maybe we can’t reach the outside from your mind. You know what we might be able to reach?”

He blinked.

“Hector’s mind.” she said.

“What?”

“I spent some time going around with the little witch. She was giving our tattoo a very strange look.” she almost laughed, “When I asked her about it, she told me something like  _ I would never get something like that _ . I thought she meant a tattoo, but she clarified that she meant a soul bond. This thing is powerful, it turns out. And remember how dreamwalking works?”

Something sparked in his eyes: “With a soul bond.”

“It’s risky, but I don’t have any other ideas.”

Quirin nodded absently: “Let’s try it.”

"Welcome back to the world of the living." greeted a girl with sunken cheeks and storm grey eyes. She looked tired, but she still smelled of that same cinnamon and oranges.

Cassandra was beside her, dressed in her normal clothes and without so much as a trace of the Moonstone. She eyed the little blonde girl suspiciously: "What did you give him?"

"It's just water, honey and crushed roots, really." the girl shrugged, tapping the side of the glass, "He looked hungry. Did you feed him these past few days?"

Silence.

"Didn't think so." she murmured, and passed him the whole glass, which he drank faster than he would've cared to admit. Whatever kind of roots she'd put in there, they tasted delicious. Maybe they were local? He made a mental note to ask her about it as soon as she was done conversing with the other two. 

The other two.

Cassandra, of course, was Cassandra, but the lady in blue looked… somewhat familiar. He briefly wondered where he'd seen her before, but she always seemed to turn her face away when he was about to find something. Her hair was soft and her voice was calming to him and he didn’t know why. 

He turned his attention back to the blonde girl: “Where… um… where are we, exactly?”

“Weißenbrück.” she replied, handing him some bread with a sympathetic look, “You’ve been out for a few days. And not just you.”

A knot formed in his gut. He had an unpleasant feeling: “What do you mean?”

“You should eat that.” she scolded, but he wasn’t inclined to obey, “Well, see, there’s been… something going around. They call it the  _ sleeping plague _ . It’s more like a curse, really.”

Scratch unpleasant, he had a  _ very _ bad feeling.

He looked into the girl’s sleepy grey eyes and found no trace of a lie: “You mean-”

“Yyyyeah…” she scratched the back of her head, “So, look, don’t panic, but most of your group’s currently in dreamland.”

“ _ What _ ??”

“Hey, I said don’t panic.”

“We’re working on it.” the lady in blue blurted out.

He felt his breath hitch: “On not panicking?” he babbled, stupidly.

“No.” said Cassandra, “On getting everyone out. We’ve already helped a lot of people. Don’t worry.”

That  _ don’t worry _ would’ve probably helped him more if it hadn’t sounded like she was trying to reassure herself more than him.

Still, he looked at her, and the lady in blue, and the girl with grey eyes, and he saw them calm. So he had to be like that too.

“Alright.” he said. Then, turning to the two strangers, he asked them: “Who are you?”

The girl gave the lady a sympathetic look. “I’m Elsie.” she waved, “Nice to officially meet you, Varian.”

“How do you-”

“I spent like three days with your group.” she grinned, “And, ya know. Clairvoyance.”

“What?”

“Forget it.” 

They both turned to the fourth person in the room.

The woman in blue seemed to hesitate. For quite some time. Her face was  _ so  _ familiar, in some way, that he was dying to hear her answer.

Cassandra elbowed her in the side, more gently than she usually did, and the woman seemed to unfreeze.

“I’m Enya.” she murmured.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I'm late and I apologize, my Wifi simply refused to collaborate :(  
> The boi's awake :D yay :DDD  
> and the tattoo has to be... terrifyingly powerful for something like the Mindtrap to work.
> 
> -Cass


	35. Dreamwalking 101

"I don't know what I expected, but-"

"This wasn't it." Quirin completed, "I know."

A black abyss, not unlike the lake, stretched out before them, and all around them. In the distance, they could see a faint green light. And that was it. That tiny speck of light was literally all that was visible in that space.

It was creepy.

"Is it me…" murmured Adira, "...or is it getting creepier every time? Yours was unsettling enough."

"At least there was  _ something _ ." he agreed, "Maybe we're just in the wrong zone. Maybe if we reach that light over there we'll find something."

"It's our best bet."

"No hallmarks around here."

"Except for the mysterious green light."

"Yes." Quirin frowned, "I don't like it. Wasn't that the same colour as Zhan Tiri's magic?"

"I don't know." she replied, "Same colour as the magic at the Great Tree, though. Which was enchanted  _ by  _ Zhan Tiri. Which…"

"Isn't good."

"Nope."

"We should probably get going."

"I agree."

They walked towards the pulsing light like moths to the flames. Further down, something stirred in a fluorescent forest of magic.

"Enya…" murmured Varian. 

The name sounded  _ so  _ familiar to him. Just like she looked familiar. He knew her. He  _ must  _ have known her, right? Because everything about her was familiar.

But from where?

Granted, he'd never travelled much, certainly not through Weißenbrück, but he was fairly sure she wasn't anyone he's met while travelling.

So, in Old Corona, perhaps. 

Good. Who, though?

Could she be one of many family friends that had visited him when he was maybe five and expected him to remember them? No, she was looking at him in a very different way. It wasn't the awkward smile of an old family friend who wasn't sure he'd remember her. It was the deeply pained look of someone who had missed him dearly, and yet he couldn't place where he knew her from. 

He wished his dad would tell him about his family friends sometimes.

He had no choice but to tell her.

"Hi…" he greeted, shyly, "I'm sorry, I… where do we know each other from?"

Maybe not the best course of action in retrospect.

The woman staggered back as if she'd been struck, and the young girl's indifferent grey eyes saddened as she staggered all the way out the door, leaving it swinging open in the wind behind her.

" _ Wait _ !" he shouted, but the lady in blue didn't come back.

The grey-eyed girl gave him a pitiful look: "Too late. Don't worry, kid. Give her an hour or so. She'll bounce back."

"But- but I- she- who-" he stuttered, but he went quiet when Cassandra shut the door firmly.

"Varian…" murmured his friend, "Do you really not remember her?"

"I know I know her, okay?" he huffed. There was a deepening pit of irritation and anxiety in his stomach: "I know that I know her, I just can't…"

He gestured vaguely with his hands: "I can't…  _ place  _ her, anywhere."

Elsie paused for a moment.

"I could give you a hand unlocking some memories…" she offered, "I mean, it won't be terribly pleasant, but-"

"Leave your magic out of this." sighed Cassandra, "He's got enough to deal with without magic memory manipulation."

"It's not exactly manipulation, but fair enough.'

"Wait!!" cried Varian, "Wait,  _ magic _ ? Memory manipulation? What was your plan there?"

The girl shrugged: "I sift through your memories and show you the ones that relate to Enya."

Cassandra seemed to disagree with her, shaking her head rather vigorously. It made her hair bounce. It was nice to see it back to its usual, dark, non-magical self. She had nice hair.

Elsie, too, had some kind of shine in her blonde curls, but they were decidedly too messy to even style them. Between the hood on her cape and the disorganized trail she seemed to leave behind her wherever she went, it wasn't hard to believe that she hadn't brushed it in a while.

But thinking about hair always brought him back to the same place, and that place was Rapunzel.

He had a vague memory of falling asleep on her shoulder. The memory warmed him, reality only made him feel colder.

"Is Rapunzel…?" he dared to ask. Sort of ask. He never finished the sentence, but he didn't need to, because Cassandra completed it for him.

"Asleep." she sighed, "We sent in Fitzherbert."

"How long ago?"

"Same time as we sent  _ her _ inside  _ your _ mind." clarified Elsie, pointing at Cassandra and Varian respectively, "They should be back soon."

There was one more question he had, but the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach told him he wouldn't like the answer.

"And my dad?"

Cassandra couldn't answer him. Elsie has less scruples, apparently: "He was also asleep. We sent Adira in. Now, though…" she frowned, "I can see them both in Hector's mind. I guess they're more adept at this  _ soul bond  _ thing than I gave them credit for."

"At this  _ what  _ now?"

"It's complicated."

He paused.

"Elsie, right?"

"That's my name."

"What were those…" he gestured something that resembled an octopus, "...tendrils, that I felt when I first fell into the nightmare? They were… cold."

"Those are what get you." sighed the witch, "Strong magic. You see, dreamwalking is based on control. You can walk safely through someone's dreams only if they have no power in it. Sometimes, the mind backs into a corner when it gets scared. For a dreamwalker, that's ideal. It allows them to interfere with someone's dreams so much that they can control it. Control _you_. All through a dream. So, strategy number one in the Evil Dreamwalker book: frighten your victim into giving up control of their mind."

"That sounds terrifying." commented Cassandra.

"Well, I'm sure you would know, you've felt those…" Elsie imitated the octopus gesture, "...things. Did you feel cold?"

"Yes."

"Okay, that's good." she scratched her temple: "If you'd felt hot all of a sudden, it would have been a sign you've been tainted."

The thought sent a shiver up both their spines.

"Yeah…" Varian grinned nervously, "Just had to control it. Piece of cake."

"It's only a piece of cake when you know what you're doing." mumbled Elsie, scratching under Merlin's chin, "Otherwise, a mess is what it is."

He almost replied.

Then the door opened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .....helloooo....
> 
> So, I know it's been a month and I'm sorry :,)  
> I had exams and then I was on vacation and I forgot to warn you guys.  
> I posted other stories while I was on vacation, but those had already been written whereas this chapter wasn't.
> 
> Hopefully, I'll be able to go back to regular updates on Friday, but as of now, you've waited long enough :,)
> 
> -Cass


End file.
